What Not to Say to Someone Who Has a Bee Phobia

OK, I'm working on a different post for later today about all the things I love about Arizona thus far, but here's a little thing I don't love - I have to share this little public service announcment: What Not to Say to Someone with a Bee Phobia.

Yesterday we went to Teresa's P.E. class for homeschoolers (which is really great, by the way! It's taught by a former school coach who now works for an organization called Athletes in Training - we have a big group of kids, ages 4 - 10 or so, and she really gets them moving and exercising and playing various team sports, working on coordination, cooperation, etc.). This was our second time in attendance - I signed her up as soon as we moved here for the Jan.-May session, once a week for an hour (very reasonable, too - $75 for the whole session of 5 months!)

Anyway, the class meets at a local park, and while Teresa is on the sports field with the big kids, there's a playground right next to the field that's great for the little ones. So Maddy and Andrew were on the playground and I was chatting with some of the other homeschool moms.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I have an almost debilitating fear of stinging insects. Really, I am terrified of bees, and that's an understatement. I've tried very hard (but failed abysmally, unfortunately) to avoid passing this fear on to the kids (some of you from our PA homeschool group will recall the time, on the way from a holy day Mass to breakfast out, that I had to pull over on the side of Rte. 322 between St. Peter's and Shady Maple because a bee had gotten into my car. Not only was it all I could do to avoid having a panic attack and causing an accident, but the girls were screaming and unbuckling themselves from their carseats to try to jump out the windows while I was driving. We had a whole fleet of minivans and full-size vans pulling over in Honeybrook, thinking I was having car trouble as I was unloading children into a corn field and fanning my car.)

And now we're lucky enough to live in a climate where there are bees flying around.....well, virtually all year round. People around here are very outdoorsy, calm, easygoing, and I made up mind that I was NOT going to make a fool of myself in front of my new friends by acting like a total nutcase at the park, so as the first bee began furiously circling my perfurmed head as I pushed Andrew on the swings, I closed my eyes and repeated to myself the mantra, "Do not panic. You are a grown woman and you are not going to look like a loser in front of your new friends." Trying to hide my full-body shaking, I gently waved the bee away with as much feigned nonchalance as I could muster, but apparently my facial expression must have given me away, because the very nice mom I was talking to at the time felt the need to "reassure" me by saying:

"Oh, don't worry - this time of year, they're usually not Africanized."