Of Murder Hornets & Slaughter Shih Tzus
If 1963’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World produced a sequel in 2020, it’d need to add at least seven more “Mads” to keep up with the lunacy inflation index. What more could be thrown our way here in America, considering pandemics, governmental implosion and an economic outlook somewhere between Clorox poisoning and Glioblastoma?
Murder hornets, of course! Murder hornets: the aggressive moniker for the Asian Giant Hornet, I’m told so named by a consortium of branding experts including Stephen King and Dateline producers. Despite having coexisted for centuries with bees and humans in Asian countries, the hornets’ invasion of the US has the country on its toes, as their ability to buzz around and sting things has combined with their ravenous nickname to inflict mass hysteria on a nation with a propensity for mass hysteria.
And sure, they may have decapitated a few honey bees here and there.
Reaction from the American populace has been swift and fierce. In an effort to eradicate what might be murder hornet, vast populations of any sort of bee have been wiped out. This is a problem, of course. For one, I can only assume this practice is responsible for the, now, three day delay of my Manuka honey order from Amazon. My morning tea and yogurt are suffering immensely. Have you ever tried Greek yogurt plain? I need sweets, but the kind of sweets that can help lower triglycerides, you know?
For another, bees, I hear, are the primary planetary pollinators, making a strong case for precedence over my honey.
Now I’m not a bee-sympathizer by any means. These days I’m more bee-agnostic, but that’s a far cry from where I began in the saga of my relationship with the Apidae family:
It dates back to an unfortunate incident when I was 8 years old in my parents’ backyard, where on a sunny summer day I was practicing hanging like a monkey from a set of near-rusted parallel bars we had installed years prior. Suddenly, a honey bee appeared not five feet from my prone torso, seemingly digging in like a bull ready to charge… stinger first… straight for the center of my forehead. Bullseye.
For a few weeks thereafter, I was the 8-year-old with early-onset acne, teased mercilessly by my camp-mates. It was also around the time I saw My Girl for the first time, the combination of which prompted me to seek vengeance for Thomas J. and my forehead alike. I imagined writing Vada Sultenfuss to tell her it would be all right and she can go back to the woods once more.
What ensued was a bee killing spree that would make Bonnie & Clyde blush, complete with holsters retrofitted for Raid.
With time my rapaciousness towards our striped friends subsided and I turned into a grown man. A learned man. And what I learned is that which may be pesky may also be necessary. Like bees. Or little siblings. Or testicles, for that matter. I’d surely sound angelic as a soprano without them and perhaps my mile time would improve, but, much like bees an entire ecosystem collapses in their absence. Metaphorically speaking, that is.
Reformed, I now shun the behavior of my benighted youth and welcome the hum of my frenetic friends’ company in helping me practice composure under pressure. Knowledge of their importance to this world, and my breakfast, and how I can live in harmony with them, has taken the “sting” out of their presence. As for murder hornets, perhaps Americans can move past their dogged nature and take the worldly advice of others on how they’ve done the same.
History tends to repeat itself and Americans’ propensity to kill or alienate out of fear, convenience, revenge and ignorance is not without its parallels in history.
Take the Slaughter Shih Tzu Craze of 1950, for instance.
Brought over from China (pronounced “ch-EYEEE-nuh” with a facial expression that says” Do I have something in my teeth?”) post-World War II by American servicemen, the Shih Tzu had just begun gaining popularity as an ideal house pet among the growing suburbs when it happened: All in the span of a few weeks, no less than three American Cocker Spaniels and Boston Terriers were found mauled to death in the suburban backyards of Cincinnati. All three, curiously enough, lived next door to the now deemed “invasive” new breed, the Shih Tzu.
Concern had been brewing for several years now that the Shih Tzu, small in size and thus accepting of lesser rations for equal amounts of joy, had been taking over for larger, costly American breeds as the pet of choice. Once word got out of Cincinnati, however, things truly got ugly for the “Slaughter Shih Tzu” and their brethren. All across America, ethnic slurs were hurled at the supposed rabid toy breed. Pekingese, Chow Chows and Shar Peis were herded into internment camps. Even Tibetan Mastiffs were barred from competing at Westminster.
This did not do the trick. In Denver, Dallas and Detroit, reports of more Cocker Spaniels and Terriers falling to the Shih Tzu emerged. Mothers and fathers, now seeing the promises of an idyllic suburban life dashed by this ferocious beast, began to panic enough for the trouble to be taken up by a special committee of the House of Representatives. Consensus among these men, all of them Spaniel or Terrier owners themselves, having never even heard of a Shih Tzu, was that this diminutive monster needed to be appeased in some way.
The Committee recommended families sacrifice their hamsters and gerbils, with instructions they be left outside next to a pair of chopsticks and Kikkoman low-sodium soy sauce, so as to make no mistake in signifying the gesture’s conciliatory intent while conveying beggarly concern for the Slaughter Shih Tzu’s blood pressure. Within days, millions of sobbing American children were mourning the untimely demise of their pet Rodentia. And yet, more Terriers and Spaniels fell.
The madness raged on until scientists noticed an unexplained fattening of Red Foxes in Shih Tzu-ravaged areas. Quickly, they came to the conclusion that these were the true offenders, not the Shih Tzu. In a 700-page report read by not a single member of the Committee, the scientists deduced that the Red Fox stealthily perpetrated the act and hid their crimes by being, well, red. Precise motives unclear, the scientists reasoned encroachment on their native lands by frontier suburbanites lead to their bloody rebellion. They recommended, in what culminated in the Shih Tzu Reparations Act of 1954, that the breed be assimilated into American culture with love, affection, poofy haircuts and designer dog-sweaters provided for in perpetuity.
Within a matter of days, the Committee disbanded, the craze abated and Americans turned their attention back to binge watching I Love Lucy while gossiping on who the neighborhood Communist might be. Normalcy reigned once more.
Today, Asian Green Hornets, Honey Bees, Shih Tzus, Spaniels and Terriers all live harmoniously amidst Earth’s boundless air, as they have for centuries. If humans listen carefully enough, they can hear their distinctive buzzings and barks all around them, as maddening or as comforting as the sounds of their own voices.
