Stop me if you’ve seen this one. No, don’t – some classics never get old, and this one is a classic.

You remember the one where our intrepid hero goes bushwhacking into the woods alone? This time he’s remembered to wear long pants, at least, and bring leather gloves. And he’s got a stick he picked up along the way – our intrepid hero can get through anything with a stick (though he will admit that ever since getting immobilized in that last patch of carnivorous blackberry, he’s also wishing he’d brought the 18″ gas-powered hedge trimmer he’s got in the garage). But he’s making great progress, and can see a clearing just ahead.

He puts his trusty stick forward, gathers his momentum (taking great care not to trip on the tangle of rhodies underfoot), and crashes through. Somewhere in the process of making it to the clearing, he remembers the sound of his head going “thonk” against something soft hanging from a limb. Shortly after, as the crashing through continues, he remembers the sound of buzzing. The running through the woods and batting away of angry yellow jackets goes on a lot longer than it seems it should have. There may have been a some panicked shrieking, too – our intrepid hero is vague on that question. But eventually they’ve stopped biting and gone back to their injured nest.

Our intrepid hero regains his composure: he’ll simply go back a different way. And he’s dropped his stick – no matter, there’s no shortage of sticks here. He sets about to find a new one in the underbrush – and that’s when he realizes he’s also lost his glasses….

Yeah.

[I did find them after about 10 minutes of careful and nervous retracing, in the brush about a dozen yards from the yellow jacket nest. I’m lucky I didn’t accidentally knock the damned thing down or I’d probably have been eaten alive. As it was, I got off with only a couple of bites. And no, I don’t have any pictures.]

Safely out.