Swarmed!

Yesterday, I ventured out on my lunch to Urban Outfitters on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to buy a birthday gift for my friend, Kari. After sifting through “Who Shat That” books, Care Bears t-shirts, talking yard gnomes and other possible items she might enjoy, I finally found two that were the perfect combination of thoughtful and offensive. Excitedly, I brought them to the checkout.

As I was standing at the counter, I noticed a crowd of people gathered at the entrance of the store looking at something through the glass doors. Hmmm…I wonder what they’re looking at, I thought.

I finished paying and headed towards the doors. It was then that I realized that no one was allowed to leave Urban Outfitters. And outside, the whole area was sectioned off with yellow “Police Line, Do Not Cross” tape, while four police officers stood guard. All because of…

BEES!

Hanging from the tree in the center of the cobblestone street, right in front of the Urban Outfitters store, there was a GINORMOUS beehive SWARMING with hundreds of bees. It was about the size of Vern Troyer a.k.a. “Mini-Me.” (I know how big he is because I saw him once, up-close, riding on his Segway at the Bellagio in Vegas. Basically, he’s about the size of a sack of potatoes.) I had never seen so many bees! How had I not noticed this on my way in?

Through the glass window and from behind the yellow police tape, everyone watched in awe as the beekeeper—or beekiller, whatever he was—propped a ladder up against the tree and ascended to spray the hive. He was dressed in a white, airtight, jumpsuit-looking thing with a huge, clear plastic helmet attached to it—straight out of “The Right Stuff.” He doused the hive with an ungodly amount of poison—so much, that it dripped from the bottom of the hive and soaked the concrete below. Finally, it grew heavy with the weight of the liquid, collapsed to the ground, and a heaping mound of dead bees landed on the pavement. There had to be at least a thousand bees! Unfortunately, there were just as many who had cheated death. And man, they were PISSED.

Bees were EVERYWHERE—buzzing through the branches of the trees, all around the beekeeper, near Urban Outfitters, Guess, Bebe and Forever 21. A few drunkenly landed on the ground and staggered to their final steps.

On the concrete right in front of Urban Outfitters, we watched as the bees withered away slowly. Their little wings fluttered helplessly, and they gasped their last little bee breaths, as if to say, “Must. Kill. That. Evil. Mother. Fucker.”

My lunch break is approximately an hour. And at this point, it was nearing the two-hour mark. I had not planned to be away from the office for this long, especially since Anne, an Associate Creative Director that I worked with, needed some lines from me for a cat food job that we were working on. My guilt got the best of me, so I called my work and asked to speak with her. The receptionist couldn’t track her down, and offered to take a message instead.

“Well…” I began. “Anne needed me to write some copy for her. But I can’t leave Urban Outfitters because there’s a swarm of bees outside, and they’re not letting anyone go. But I’ll try to get out as soon as I can. Maybe 10 minutes or so?”

“Um, okay,” she sounded unsure.

“I swear, I’m not making this shit up.”

“Alright, then. I’ll tell her.”

While CSS, The Rapture and other assorted indie bands blared through Urban’s sound system, we continued to stare out the windows at the spectacle before us.

The Urban Outfitters manager approached us as we waited patiently. “Whoever asked if there was a back door—we can’t let you out that way. Sorry.”

So we just stood there, watching…and waiting. I was restless, so I wandered around and perused the overpriced plaid Little House On the Prairie-esque blouses and gold falcon necklaces. After doing a lap through the new spring arrivals, I made my way back over to the door.

“What…are we stuck inside here ‘til every last bee is dead?” I asked my fellow Urban Outfitters comrades. I mean…I love distressed tees and Arcade Fire as much as the next girl, but I had to get out of that store.

Finally, after it seemed like the bee death count had grown to a safe number, I decided that I was going to make a run for it. “I’m gonna try to escape,” I told the group. “The cops aren’t going to arrest us if we leave, are they?” I asked no one in particular.

“Yes, but you could get stung,” a short, older Hispanic woman answered.

“I’ll scale the wall so they won’t get me,” I told her. I wasn’t a bee psychologist, but it seemed that the live ones were more focused on seeking revenge for their brethren, which meant they stayed in fairly close proximity to the beekeeper/killer.

I quickly opened the glass door and darted out, making sure to stay close to the building. The cop in front of the Guess Store and a few Promenade shoppers looked at me like I was crazy. But I felt fairly safe. Everywhere I stepped, the sidewalk was dotted with dead bees.

* * *

When I got back to our building, I headed straight to Anne’s office.

“Did Emily give you the message?”

“Yeah, she said you were going to be late coming back because you were trying to avoid a swarm of bees.”

Gee, I'm sure glad that message didn’t get misconstrued.