5 things you can do on a terrace full of wasps
The last free table, a chair in the sun, sunglasses on and enjoying yourself on a sunny terrace. But then you hear buzzing and see one of those black-and-yellow pests circling your cappuccino. Oh no, wasps! What can you do about the little beasts?
Wasp in your glass: pay for it yourself?
You want to take a nice sip of your Coke, but something is floating in it… Yolanda experienced it herself: a wasp had chosen her glass of Coke for a backstroke session, she writes on Facebook. ‘The waiter took the glass away. After fifteen minutes I asked whether I would get a new glass of Coke.’ Fair enough, right? Or not? ‘When I paid, it turned out I also had to pay for the wasp swimming pool,’ she writes. Is that fair, or not very customer-friendly?
Renée responds—quite rightly—that the restaurant didn’t put the wasp in there, so perhaps it’s not their fault. But those yellow-and-black stingers throwing themselves at your terrace table are pretty darn annoying. What can you do about them?
Watch where you sit
Most people get stung because they sit on a wasp or accidentally grab one. So be careful when you see wasps flying around a table, and make sure you don’t accidentally squash one.
Waving them away is pointless
Some people start doing a kind of gym-style arm-waving routine when they see a wasp, complete with frantic waving and jumping out of their chair. It doesn’t help, so don’t. There’s a good chance you’ll rile up the wasps, making them more likely to sting.
Craving ice cream? Coke? Have coffee instead
Wasps love sweet things. So on a terrace swarming with wasps, you’re better off ordering mineral water. Or coffee, because wasps absolutely hate the smell of coffee. Do you smoke? Light up—tobacco smoke drives wasps away. Although it’s better to leave yourself; nothing is more unpleasant for non-smokers than sitting in a cloud of smoke.
Don’t! Swat them!
Whack, whack, whack—you swing your menu around and just like that you’ve got three or four of them. That helps! No: when a wasp dies, it releases a scent that makes its colleagues even more aggressive. Oh, and catching one and trapping it in your Coke bottle isn’t nice either: who gets to remove it with an angry wasp inside?
Enjoy the breeze
There are fewer wasps by the sea or in a place where there’s a bit of wind. Of course, you’d rather sit out of the wind and in the sun, but if there are lots of wasps, you might as well go for the Beyoncé effect in your hair and sit right in the wind.
