WWRD (What Would Rumsfeld Do)?

I don't like killing things.

In fact, the only creature in the entire world that I have no qualms about killing on sight, with malice, is a mosquito. And that mostly has to do with them sucking blood from my small children.

But, in general, I instruct my children to not step on a bug just because one happens to be crawling by.

I just don't enjoy ending life.

Even wasps, I guess.

Even though one of them once did this to me while I was only trying to trim a bush:



That wasp and its entire nest would soon be wiped out in a holocaust of insecticide spray. I was just doing my job, and we all remember Pearl Harbor.

Fast forward a couple of years from that swollen lip to this past Friday.

I came home and caught a glimpse of three wasps building one of their gray mud nests on the ceiling above my front porch. I had just gotten off work, which didn't leave me in a particularly philosophical state of mind about the nature of life and death.

I matter-of-factly set my case of Miller Lite down on the kitchen table, grabbed the central-nervous-system-ravaging weapon of mass destruction spray and obliterated their settlement.

I didn't think much of it, except that I kind of wished they hadn't picked that spot, for their own sake. But at least they didn't pick another bush to ambush me.

As the weekend progressed, I progressively became more relaxed. And lazy.

I sat on the screened-in deck Sunday afternoon, drinking several beers in the aftermath of my 4-year-old son's birthday party. Sitting there in a haze, I looked up to the ceiling. Out of boredom, really. It's not like I've got an ever-trained eye looking for problems with my house.

Nonetheless, up there was a single wasp busily constructing a nest.

I thought to go get the spray, but a few things struck me.

For one, I didn't feel like getting up. Nor did I really want to deal with the pungent scent of annihilation. And for some reason, I began to question whether it was necessary to kill this wasp.

After all, there it was, working hard. Making a life for itself. While I was just sitting there enjoying the lavish fruits of being a human being, an advanced creature who is fortunate enough to participate in a complex economy that allows me easy access to fermented liquid grain in a refridgerated can.

It made me think of the doctrine of pre-emptive war, and how I'm not sold on that idea.

It forced me to consider how much more difficult it is for me to kill something when I have so much time to think about it. I mean ... the end of existence for a living thing hinging on the whims of your desire to kill it.

Should I let it live another day or two because I'm in a good mood and don't feel like killing? Or should I make the minimal effort to go ahead and end this thing so that some creature doesn't have to do all that work in vain?

What a downer. You either feel like a lazy hypocrite or nothing more than a killer who has to kill because you're facing an existential mini-crisis.

Maybe being a human isn't all that easy, even when you're just sitting with a beer and nothing to do but let your mind think.

After all of that thinking, I chose to do nothing. To put it off to a day more-dedicated to labor and killing.

But now, today, after a day of work and less room in my mind for patience and sympathy for an insect that has proved that it will sting my lip at the slightest provocation, I find myself on the cusp of a decision.

Something has to happen. It can't just stay there in an enclosed space where my loved ones live their lives and invite all its friends and family.

I think I'll go with what the pre-iron-lung Darth Vader referred to as "aggressive negotiations."

I'll open the screen door, tear the nest down and see if it will fly out and stay the shit out of my personal space.

If not, I will retaliate with extreme prejudice.

If it's smart, it'll buy me another case of beer.