The Time I Almost Swallowed A Bumble Bee

Thursday, October 27, 2011

One of the routes I walk regularly for my training is through a new neighborhood with a lot of landscaping. A few of the blocks have lots of flowers and there are usually bees all over the bushes. Last week the bees reminded me of the time one flew in my mouth.

Back in junior high, my school went on a field trip to Magic Mountain. We had just arrived and were heading through the gates. I turned around to say something to one of my friends and the bee flew right in. It couldn't have been timed more perfectly. If I had turned around one second earlier, the bee probably would have flown around me. One second later and it might have gotten tangled in my hair.

'Bumble Bee' photo (c) 2008, Harald Hoyer - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Anyway, this was not a worker bee. I had a bumble bee in my mouth. It couldn't have been in there for more than two seconds, but talk about panic!

Oh my god! That's a bee!

In my mouth!

I can feel the legs!

I can feel the wings!

It's fuzzy!

I didn't know what to do. Should I open my mouth and hope it flies back out? What if goes down my throat? What if I swallow it? Will I get stung in my esophagus? Am I allergic to bees? What if my tongue swells up?

I didn't want to push the bee out with my tongue or try to cough it out. I started to freak out and it flew back out. I tell you, no ride I went on that day was as terrifying as those two seconds of having a disoriented bumble bee in my mouth.

My friends asked what was going on because I was dancing around with my tongue out and I was wiping it and spitting in case there was a wayward wing or leg still in there. It was a horrid experience. I've got chicken skin remembering it.

Now it's your turn. Has anything accidentally ended up into your mouth? 

(That sounded way more dirty than I intended it to!)

3 comments:

  1. I actually had a similar experience. I was about 5 and put my face in a GIANT rose, and next thing you know, I've got about 3 bees in my mouth. Unfortunately, one of them stung me, but I did learn to look a little closer at the flowers I picked...

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  2. Funny you should mention it. Same thing happened to me, but I wasn't so lucky. I was at a BBQ when I was a kid and a yellowjacket landed on my hamburger. I of course did not notice and took a bite. Right away, I felt the most painful burning sensation on my tongue. I had never been stung before so I assumed it was my rubber band (remember how we all had those in 4th grade?) from my braces snapping. As I was screaming in pain, it crawled out of my mouth and flew away. That's when I knew I got stung. Good thing I wasn't allergic. The only side effect was I could only eat ice cream for the rest of the day. Not so bad.

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  3. I was stung in the butt by a wasp while in a tanning bed when I was a freshman in college. Needless to say it was the last time I went tanning!
    I haven't really had anything in my mouth...other than some things at work which you REALLY don't want to know about!

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