There was a time, long ago. It didn’t seem so long ago then, but looking back on it now, it was. Jill and I had not yet met, so it was back when I was just www.billand.com, and she was www.andjill.com. I lived in a brand-new townhouse. Apparently, I did not live alone.

The noise overhead sounded, to me, like a squirrel trying to bury a nut in my attic.

Curious. It was coming from just on the other side of the bathroom ceiling drywall - the drywall that prevented the top of my bathroom from being the bottom of my attic. I stood and balanced on the edge of the tub, stretched up, and put my ear to the paint.

Scratcha… Scratcha… Scratcha… Scratch.

I lowered down and straightened up, puzzled. I located what I estimated to be the area directly below the possible squirrel, and gave him a good, solid thump in the nuts. I was certain that would immediately send any squirrel up and over, and back out into the world like a small, hairy base jumper. However, upon being thumped, the noise only got a little louder, and a little faster.

Scratcha-scratcha-scratcha-scratch!

Additionally, that area of the ceiling didn’t feel very much like solid drywall. It felt drawn and tight, like a snare drum.

I decided to investigate. The attic was accessible only via a hole in the ceiling of my bedroom closet, so I pulled a stepladder into it and started up. In case of trouble, I carried at my side a single corn-straw broom in one hand, and my Mag-lite in the other. If my aim were true, these would surely protect me against any somersaulting kung-fu squirrels left behind to guard the nutpile.

Everything up there was joists, rafters, drywall backing, and pink insulation. There were also a fair amount of nail-tips coming down through the ceiling – sharp and pokey and just right for snagging eyelids or popping scalps. If lost track of, they’d also be perfect for punching right through temples and penetrating blood-brain barriers that protect your brain from the things that aren’t your brain.

I performed a tightrope act from one joist to the other, and slowly navigated my way across the attic, over unsupported drywall and below galvanized braindeath, to the space above my bathroom. I stopped and listened intently.

Nothing.

I started to step over a large roll of insulation, and glanced over it to pick my spot on the other side. Suddenly, the arc of my flashlight played across something small and quite horrible… Something that left me frozen. Frozen, in spite of the more than adequate R-49 insulation all around me.

It was a single, busy bee.

Only he wasn’t really single. Hidden behind the roll of insulation, I now noticed a moving map of bees fuming and jitterbugging over a softball-sized hive that was growing out of a thin spot on the top of my drywall. With little regard for my blood-brain barrier, I turned spasmodically and began to GET ON UP OUTTA THERE.

I held onto my now-useless corn-straw broom as I successfully bolted across the attic framework I had so carefully traversed only moments earlier. I think I once saw Daffy Duck sprinting in the very same way across lily pads as he ran from an alligator. Had I stepped on the unsupported drywall between joists, then I think the best vantage point to really appreciate my powdery descent through the ceiling would have been from my bedroom chair, over by the windows.

I managed to make it back down the ladder, and quickly pulled the attic door closed above me.

So, that strange sound had less to do with a thrifty squirrel than it did a writhing knot of angry bees, busily dismantling my drywall from the inside out, and repurposing it for the hive collective.

Safe once again, I stood on the edge of the bathtub and rethumped the ceiling.

ZZzzzz-ZZzzzz-ZZzzzz-ZZzzzz!

In the new context given me by the bees, I appreciated this now unmistakably buzzy sound. What previously had sounded like a scratchy squirrel now sounded a lot more like stingy bees. In fact, I could hear them up there perfectly… tapping their segmented thoraxes into one another in an orgy of non-mammalian exo-skeletonism.

I called an exterminator, but he wanted too much money. So, I decided to take care of the infestation myself. First, I would need a bee suit. For reasons that seemed valid at the time, I decided that the best way to make a bee suit myself would be to fashion it from garbage bags, duct tape, and an old screen door.

This idea, while beautiful in its simplicity, failed in its execution. So I approached the problem from a different angle. What if, instead of making one large bee suit for myself, I made hundreds of smaller bee suits for them? This seemed like the way to go. I began to craft scores of miniature bee suits. Each one had a little extra padding in the back of each pair of pants for keeping stingers from poking through to the outside, and subsequently, into me.

I waited until nightfall, when I knew all the bees would be asleep, and then I quietly climbed the ladder and reentered the attic. I made my way stealthily over to the hive, and sure enough, they were all asleep. I began the tedious task of gently slipping a tiny pair of pants and a bee suit onto each sleeping bee. Once I was done, I snuck back out of the attic, and down the ladder. Exhausted, I slept.

I awoke suddenly, and realized that it was morning. I wasn’t sure what time bees wake up, but I thought it best to have the element of surprise on my side. Without fear, I confidently climbed the ladder and entered the attic for the third time.

“All bees! Wake up!” I shouted. “You’re leaving!”

They swarmed me immediately. They landed on my arms, neck, and face. They crawled in my hair, and even up my pantlegs. I could feel them everywhere, tapping me with their little bee pants. Yep, they were trying to sting me, but they couldn’t. Instead, it was like, tap, tap, tap.

. . .

Oh my god. You should have seen your face! You totally believed me!

I didn’t put pants on bees, dude.