My dog got stung real bad in my backyard by a hornet this week, so that's how I started thinking about this. I've been stung a few times in my life when I was a kid and during my drunken early 20s years. Every sting I've received has always been by hornets who wouldn't leave me alone. While walking my dog today, I noticed several bees hard at work pollinating flowers and thought to myself: "I've never been stung by a bee!"

Even when I was a kid, bees always had this mind your own business attitude. As long as I didn't interfere with their work, they wouldn't use their permit to carry stinger on me. Hornets, on the other hand, live to interfere.

My dog was minding his own business in my backyard before he got stung by a hornet, which was what I was doing the last time I got stung several years ago. It was at a barbecue after I got my plate of food. A group of hornets thought the food was rightfully theirs and began to swarm.