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World of Wasps

A brave wasp that is sacrificed for the good of its kind (amusement park for wasps)
 
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Let’s face it – everybody hates wasps. Unlike their cute and cuddly counterpart, the bumblebee, wasps will sting you unprovoked, they’re ugly, and they probably ruined your picnic last summer.

Children are exactly the same, but when children get annoying, you don’t spray them with chemicals, you don’t try and swat them, and you certainly don’t poke their habitat with a big stick. It’s about time that wasps were treated with the same respect and understanding as children – somebody has to stick up for the poor creatures. It seems that the only thing children need is a quick visit to Alton Towers, and they’re soon back on the straight and narrow, so it’s quite clear that the construction of an amusement park designed especially for wasps is well overdue.

I propose that, in a woodland clearing, there be built rows upon rows of butchers’ shop windows, each one with open jam jars of different flavours and smells adorning their window sills. Scattered about the grass between these windows will lie hundreds of windfall apples, just waiting to be turned inside out by a swarm of hungry wasps. Trendy Ikea lamps are dotted about here and there, complete with that strange upside down design that wasps are so attracted to (there’s no real scientific evidence for the reason behind this, but my Ikea lamp always has a wasp or two milling about inside it).

It’s all well and good having such amenities and facilities built in a random woodland clearing, but it wouldn’t be serving much of a purpose if it were only the local wasps who knew about the place, would it?

Now we’ve all seen those pamphlets you can get that advertise amusement parks, with a little picture of a map and some vague directions on the back. We also know that wasps are probably the least likely creatures in the world to be able to decipher these directions. But wasps have a very keen sense of smell, and they have an even keener sense of vengeance, and it’s at this point that the whole thing starts to get biblical.

When a wasp is killed, it releases a potent pheromone that can be sensed by wasps from quite a distance away. Upon realising that one of its kin has been killed, wasps instinctively locate the source of the scent and inflict bloody revenge upon the transgressor. The sad reality is that for the wasps to find their promised land, a great sacrifice must be made. A wasp, selected at random, must be nominated as the sacrificial wasp, so that the scent of its body may guide others to the World of Wasps. Of course, the wasps will be deeply saddened upon finding their tragic friend lying face down in a blob of blueberry jam, but they’ll soon forget about it once they realise that all around them lay big piles of damp wood and soft fruit.

My one regret is that I have been unable to think of even one wasp-related pun to use in this idea. Furthermore, it is with a heavy heart that I announce the World of Wasps’ slogan as “The Place to Bee Seen”. But I’m sure that the wasps won’t mind.

spiritualized, Aug 06 2004

Images of the inevitable pun http://www.google.c...search=&safe=images
[normzone, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

A review of [Ling]'s suggested reading material. http://en.wikipedia...ki/The_Wasp_Factory
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

'The Furies' by Keith Roberts http://www.amazon.c...026-1432907-2648431
Really big wasps. [DrBob, May 27 2005]

[link]






       Wasp-waisted   

       [see link]
normzone, Aug 06 2004
  

       Good detective work, now to find a way to impliment it.   

       By the way, I've just done a little research, and it turns out that I may have been a little too optimistic regarding the whole pheremones thing. I don't know whether anyone can verify from how far away that a wasp can sense wasp pheremones?
spiritualized, Aug 06 2004
  

       I think I've wasp my marbles
spiritualized, Aug 06 2004
  

       Detective work ? You call that detective work ? I work in Quality Assurance.....that wasn't detective work, that was the product of an over-active imagination. You wanna see detective work ? I could use your help dealing with my engineers today.....   

       A wasp destroyed is a wasp wasted.
normzone, Aug 06 2004
  

       Your engineers? Wasp their problem?
spiritualized, Aug 06 2004
  

       Are White Anglo Saxon Protestants really that bad?   

       Suggested reading material: "The Wasp factory"
Ling, Aug 07 2004
  

       Another interesting WASP acronym - Wait Ask Sniff Pet. It's to help you remember how to best approach a dog: Wait - observe the dog and it's body language; Ask - ask the owner if it's actually okay to touch their dog; Sniff - let the dog acquaint itself with you; Pet - Pet the dog, but only in the direction of its fur.
spiritualized, Aug 07 2004
  

       WASP - Wait, Afro... Stung Penis?

I fucking hate wasps. They ruined a lot more than my summer last year. Could we somehow add fire to this amusement park?
AfroAssault, May 27 2005
  

       //the only thing children need is a quick visit to Alton Towers// Last time I visited Alton Towers, it *was* World of Wasps - around the bins and food outlets they were thick. They even had little wasp hotels looking strangely like Ikea lamps, hanging from the trees.
TolpuddleSartre, May 27 2005
  

       I like the idea of a wasp wonderland (or a Hymenoptera Hotel) but I doubt they'd do the same for us.
DrBob, May 27 2005
  
      
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