So...

I was stung by a bee.

It went down like this:

I was minding my own business, waiting in line at the drive-thru. Ace of Base was playing on my stereo and all was right in the world. As I grew more impatient with the minivan in front of me and the amount of time it was taking them to order their food, I began to look around.

Hovering, at eye level just on the other side of my window, was a bee.
He was just hanging-out out there, staring at me.

The minivan eventually pulled forward and so did I, leaving the bee behind. As I opened my mouth to order my breakfast, the bee suddenly reappeared, lunged at me, and bounced off my forehead. I completed my order while dodging the bee, which made my voice sound a lot like tHHHHiiissSSS. I swatted him away and pulled forward again.

I did not see him again. I heard no buzzing. Caught no movement out of the corner of my eyes. And so I assumed he had resolved his issue with me and gone on about the business of pollinating flowers.

At some point I became aware of a slightly fuzzy sensation on my left collar bone. I don't know how else to describe it. It felt like a large piece of lint had fallen onto me. It wasn't moving, and it made no noise. Obviously lint. Or something lint like.

Why I would assume this, I don't know. Particularly given the overly amorous attention given to me by the bee earlier. Besides that, giant pieces of lint aren't simply randomly generated by the universe. They don't just find their way onto your collar bone while you're sitting still inside your car, but I digress.

At any rate, assuming the fuzzy mess on me was a piece of lint, and without making any attempt to look at it or to simply brush it away, I reached down and pinched it (PINCHED IT!) between my index finger and my thumb. It was relatively solid -spongy- but not exactly soft, certainly not what I was expecting, but by no means alarming either. I secured my grasp and nonchalantly tossed it out the window.

It however, was not a piece of lint. Not at all. Instead, it was the bee. Sitting perfectly still, just hangin' with me in the drive-thru. He was displeased with my decision to pinch him between my less-than nymphy fingers and promptly stung me.

I was aware of the stinging sensation, but nonplussed as to its origins. The whole thing happened so fast that my mind didn't even have time to process that it was a bee and not lint on me, and that said be had subsequently stung me. Instead I was sitting there wondering how on earth I had managed to get hurt by a lint ball.

It wasn't until I pulled down the vanity mirror and saw the stinger, that I began to put the pieces together. What I can't figure out is, what on earth compelled me to pinch it rather than just brush it away? It seems like a strange course of action for me, and I can't recall a similar incident when I would have chosen to pinch rather than brush.

It's totally irrelevant of course, but the questions remain, buzzing around my head.