If you found this article by clicking the “Kill Stories” category, you’re going to find this “kill” a little unorthodox. I recently did a major cleaning of excess material from my home. Some items were headed to the used book store, others to the DAV Thrift Store, and the rest was off to the city dump. This is when having my “baby trailer” is awesome. Once I had loaded a good bit of junk for a run to the dump, I figured I’d toss one more light item on top. I chose a loose lawnmower catch bag that had sat on the patio for a while. I kept an eye for snakes and spiders as I picked it up. All went well as I walked it to the trailer and tossed it on top. As I began to tuck an empty gas can into the back, I found myself surrounded by several dozen wasps! Apparently, there was a nest in the bag and they were quite irritated by my unceremonious tossing of their home.

I let them settle for a few minutes, then returned to the scene of the crime to get a tiedown strap over the bulk of the load. There were too many wasps for me to use as many straps as I prefer, so I decided that one was enough to go for a quick drive. The city dump is only 1/2-mile from me, but I needed to rid myself of the wasps so I could safely offload the cargo. I took a 20-minute drive with the intention of shaking-up the trailer and eventually ejecting each wasp from the load through a series of jackrabbit starts. The bulk of the wasps were left homeless as I drove away from each changing traffic light. I could imagine the rest being whisked away, scattered about my path through the city, as they came out of the bag to investigate the ruckus. The plan worked. But those wasps weren’t my only “kill” that day…

Each time I’m on the road with my car/trailer combination that’s perfectly capable of and often driving the speed limit (or more), I never fail to have someone nearby who simply cannot stand to be behind “a trailer” (or let me pass), especially at a traffic light. One notorious traffic light is about 100 yards from a freeway entrance. A tricked-out Honda Fit pulled up behind me, then decided he’d rather come alongside and attempt to cut me off to enter the freeway. I’ve seen it at this particular light a hundred times and watched as the light turned green. I had been doing jackrabbit starts to jolt the wasp nest and leave wasps in my wake; so why not now?    I imagine he was pretty surprised to see a “Golf” with a trailer pull away with enough thrust to have his passenger laughing at him. I don’t drag race and I hardly consider outrunning a Fit to be a major accomplishment; but it was rather satisfying to remind him that his car isn’t fast, especially when outrun by a trailer full of junk. HAHA!

♫ [Insert theme to “Sanford and Son” here],

Scott