I'm a Bee Student

     At the end of my first week of college, I already have a pretty extensive list of ways I've experienced class being disrupted. So far, I've heard catcalls outside the window, car alarms going off, cell phones ringing, and even the construction of a whole new building (including loud working music, whistling, chainsaws, jackhammers, and the like) going on fifteen feet from the open window of my biology classroom. I've also heard from some fellow students that they had to actually evacuate their classroom for a fire alarm that no one else in the building could hear.
     By and large though, the most distracting thing I've experienced to date in a college classroom took place during my first biology lab the other day. We're sitting on squeaky, spinning stools surrounded by sharp pointy tools, cutting tools, 3D models of a human being's insides, little living creatures swimming in jars, big dead creatures floating in jars, and a multitude of different knobs, buttons, and levers to investigate. We are handling these things surprisingly maturely, all looking forward and listening to the professor explain the syllabus. And then we here the buzzing.
     Flying overhead, darting about with no regard to the people trying to learn below it, an enormous hornet investigates our ceiling lights. And I do mean enormous. I could clearly see the different segments of its body even from across the room. I'm guessing everyone else could as well, because I could see that every eye in the room was dedicated to following this bee. No one was listening to the professor anymore. The collective train of though went something like, "Okay, don't clean microscope lenses with -- Oh my God, is that actually a bee? Where is the bee now? Is it going to sting me? Can I react quickly enough to kill it if it came near? What if it stung the professor, that might be funny. Unless he's allergic...oh, no, where did it go?" Even the professor couldn't help but keep tabs on the insect as it resisted our every attempt to free it by opening windows and continued to try to find an escape route through the lighting.
     The only living object in the room that seems to be unaware of the bee's disrupting presence is the bee itself (and of course the paramecium). What's irritating to me is that the bee doesn't have to care. It has a singular power over every person in the room because of its innate ability to inflict more pain on us than we perceive being able to inflict on it. I mean, with a well-placed swat we could take that creature's life; but instead we all cower under our desks, praying it doesn't land on us unnoticed and decide to attack. And then we could take its life in revenge.
     So I guess the real question is, why do bees get to have stingers? Has anyone ever stopped killing a bee because it stung them? I don't think so. It seems like an unnecessary irritation.
     I don't really know where I was going with this, but it's uncomfortably hot and I have nothing better to do with this day so screw it, I'm publishing it. Ha.