Yesterday was race day, yay! It was the FCRCC Knockout Race which means your team races three qualifiers then you go on to the knockout round which sounds pretty much exactly like it is.
There are 7 teams in the heat, you race, the last two get knocked out, the rest of you immediately paddle back to the start line and you race again. This happens for three races in a row. The final race there are only three boats and the pressure is on!
It is soooooooo much fun! 🙂
There are no medals for this race, just bragging rights.
We earned a tad bit of bragging rights since we came in second place in B Division. Not too shabby!
However, despite a day filled with racing, and fun, and hanging with the team, and repeated sunscreen application, and the joy of not being at work on a day I normally work the one big memory that won’t leave my brain is of…*dun-dun-dun*…a bee.
Yup, that’s right, a honey bee. Ya know, those cute little guys that are integral to our ecosystem and that are dying out? Those bees.
Might as well lean back in your chair and be comfy for this…
Some of us went to McDonald’s to get drinks, hey, it’s Summer Drink Days, don’t judge! I decided to try the lemonade, which fyi, delish! I didn’t quite finish it when we had to go warm up for our next race, the Knockout round, so I left it in the cup holder in the arm of my camp chair.
When we got back after our three back-to-back races I figured take one last gulp to finish the lemonade off and throw away the cup. Seems a fairly normal decision, right?
Well, note to self, next time look in the cup, and the straw! I take my sip of drink and something solid-ish is all of a sudden in my mouth. I thought it must be a lemonade seed and was kinda surprised cause this is a McD’s drink, so, not real lemonade, right? I mean, it comes out of a machine, it is processed in some way I am sure…but maybe I am wrong and there are real lemons involved in the making of this drink…who knows!
Not wanting to swallow a seed I pop a finger and thumb in to my mouth to remove it and what do I remove but a dead honey bee.
Yup.
Let that sink in a minute. I had a honey bee in my mouth.
My. Mouth.
*shudder*
What if I had opted to chew and swallow the “seed”?? Ugh, the thought makes me cringe. (seriously, cringing right now from having written that!)
I guess the lure of the sugar in the lemonade was too much for the bee to resist and down the straw it went, where it promptly got stuck and drowned, poor little bee. And then instead of having a proper funeral, or whatever it is bees do when one of their own goes down in the line of duty, I almost ate him! Then I threw him to the ground in a silent freak out! *shakes head at self* So disrespectful.
I actually do feel kind of bad. I don’t feel bad about killing certain creepy crawlies, especially if they are in my apartment, but I try not to kill them when I am outside and in their home environment. Plus the whole endangered thing! Oh the guilt! So I’m going to take some wild flower seeds with me when I hike this Wednesday and scatter them around, maybe some of them will grow, and help out the honey bees in that area, and karma will be balanced once again…or the bees have a little bee network and they now know I was indirectly responsible for the drowning of one of their own and the desecration of his body and now I’m on the honey bee hit list…
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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