By the time I was old enough to own a bb gun, I couldn't bring myself to use it on birds or squirrels or any of the other terrestrial creatures most boys shoot at. I never trapped lizards in coffee cans and I never fried ants with a magnifying glass (even though I REALLY wanted to). I found the concept of hunting so distasteful, that when my father took me with him on a deer hunt for the first and only time, I actually shot and killed our truck.

You see, when I was 11 years old, I saw first-hand what happens when you mess with Mother Nature. She turns into a real bitch.

We were supposed to visit a Jewish Synagogue to get a first-hand look at how other religions that weren’t “the one true way into heaven through God and his son Jesus Christ who died for our sins and if you don’t believe that you’re a sinner and you’re going to hell.” And the synagogue we were supposed to visit had to close that weekend for emergency repairs after a tornado ripped the roof off of the temple.

Of course it did. It was Jewish house of worship, and therefore wasn’t Christian and so God sent a tornado down to rip the place asunder. At least, that’s what our youth group leader, Deacon Chip Nettle, told us. He wasn’t really into the idea of visiting the synagogue in the first place. But the parents and parishioners thought it might be good to expose all 20 of us in the “Future Shepards” 9-12 year old youth group to our sister-religion, perhaps promote a bit of religious tolerance. “Because we must be tolerant of those who believe differently than us, even when we know they’re going to hell because they do,” Deacon Chip said, both of his chins shaking violently as he nodded.

So, after God’s Holy Tornado of Justice took out the temple, Deacon Chip offered to take us someplace else that was just as educational and informative - a pre-casino Cherokee, North Carolina. Because if there’s something that’s closely related to Judaism and other Abrahamic faiths, it’s an exploitive American Indian reservation catering to the insatiable need of white people to buy arrowheads and replicated totem poles.

But hey, it was fun - after getting up at four am to take a five hour van ride, we arrived on real Indian land. As soon as we parked, we were greeted by table after table of real Indians dressed up in real Indian clothing, selling real Indian crap. We had our pick of turqoise-festooned trinkets and other Chines... I mean, Indian-made artifacts. Along with the aforementioned arrowheads and totem poles, there were necklaces and wood carvings and moccasins and feathered headdresses. But the items that garnered the most attention from us were the taxidermied statues made of real frog and lizard carcasses that had been lacquered and wired to stand, depicting the animals playing banjos and miniature accordions.

There were plenty of games to play and activities to do there, as well. We learned how to make fire with sticks and how to shuck corn. But the best show was the LIVE FEROCIOUS grizzly bear. For five bucks a head, we got to see this poor bear chained to a wall by all four legs and its neck, with the front leg-irons having slightly more slack in the chain. The result was that the bear was either standing upright, or leaning just far enough forward to look like it was COMING RIGHT FOR YOU. It, too, was shocked by an electrified prong by its handler to get it to growl and roar. We sat through three shows, and it didn’t sit or lay down once... Which I imagine was how the rest of its day went.

Of course, we didn’t notice any of that at the time. We just saw a BIG FUCKING BEAR and it was cool as hell... But nowhere near as cool as the chicken egg-laying machine. This little device was a money-making stroke of genius. You drop a quarter into a machine which harbored a live chicken. A metal prong extending from the side of the machine suddenly emitted an arc of electricity, shocking the chicken and prompting it to lay an egg. We must have went through ten dollars in quarters just shocking the shit out of this poor hen. It was easily the most amusing attraction there, even more than the chained-up bear.

Finally, it was time to depart. We had come to a Godless, foreign land filled with Godless foreigners and learned all sorts of neat shit about their ways... Mostly that they were more than happy to take our fat white American dollars in return for cheaply made reminders of a culture we wiped out with measles and rubella. Oh, and we got to shock chickens and watch a bear stand around. It was a big day, and it really stoked our appetite.

And that's when Deacon Chip said the magic word: “McDonalds.”

Just saying that one word in front of a group of youth is enough to cause them lose their shit, shake violently and pop - much like the little people in the game Lemmings, after the person playing has grown tired of trying to solve the puzzle and just wants to see 100 little people explode like popcorn across the screen.

For a kid, McDonalds encapsulates just about everything there is that’s great about being too young to shave. Of course, there’s the food: fried apple-flavored snacks, fried potatoes, fried pseudo-chicken blobs, and hamburgers covered in cheese and ketchup. And when you order this food, it comes in a box decorated with brightly-colored characters of puppets, with a happy-go-lucky clown looking pleased to see you and only you. Inside this box, you won’t find just the aforementioned food, but a toy. There’s a box with fried delicious food-flavored things and it also comes with a motherfucking TOY.

It can’t get better than that, can it? Well hell yes, it can! Because after you get done consuming your fried corn-syrup-infused meal and you play with and subsequently break your toy, you get to go play on a gigantic rubberized playground complete with monkey bars, ascending ladders which lead to twisty slides and ramps, and for whatever reason, a bridge connecting to a platform that has a steering wheel on it.

And let’s not forget the ball pit.

The ball pit was THE epitome of all that was cool about McDonalds. You could jump into the ball pit. You could throw the balls at other kids. You could bury other kids in the ball pit. And, when no one was looking, you could piss your pants or sneeze or, if you were young enough, lose your entire diaper in the ball pit. And it was all condoned by your parents and guardians!

We were worked up to a fevered pitch by the time we arrived at McDonalds. We piled out of the church van and surveyed the premises, and were disappointed to find that this McDonalds was apparently an older McDonalds. They didn’t have the big, fancy PlayPlace playground out front, complete with astroturf. All they had was a small park area behind it, covered in trees and flowers and real grass.

Ick.

But they did have a swingset and some monkey bars. And plenty of picnic tables for us to climb on and possibly destroy after we ate. So we sprinted inside and ordered our happy meals and, as a group, headed to the park area so we could get about the business of filling ourselves with enough empty calories to fuel our subsequent riot across the playground.

All twenty youth members, four chaperones and Deacon Chip walked out of the restaurant with food in hand (and for Deacon Chip, food in both hands). We headed to the park area, which was fenced in with old-timey railroad-tie-and-post fencing, except for a small gap which opened to a set of wooden-log stairs, dug into the side of the hill leading down to the park area. The opening had a small chain across it, and hanging from the middle of the chain was a sign that said CLOSED.

“Looks like it’s closed,” one of the chaperones said astutely.

“Eh,” Deacon Chip muttered. He handed one sack of his food to the chaperone and lifted the chain off the hook. “Let’s go on in. I’m sure it’s fine.”

We, the youth, began running around Chip and the chaperones through the gate and down the stairs. The chaperones followed behind, with Deacon Chip doing the polite thing and taking up the rear. And this is where I learned that, not only is Mother Nature a bitch, but she’s also a brilliant tactician.

She had created a choke-point with which to exact her revenge on us.

Now, you city-folk and yankees may not know this, but here in the south, we have a species of predatory wasp known as Vespinae Vespula... Or more commonly, the yellow jacket. And yellow jackets, well... They don’t build exposed aerial nests in trees or rafters like most wasps. These little buggers like to build their nests concealed in the ground or in hollowed-out logs and wood. Or, in the case of the log-staired entrance of this park area, both.

Those of us in the front - myself, with four other kids - made it down the hill and were on our way to the playground when we heard nature’s symphony begin behind us. It started al niente, as the marching of feet down the stairway and light chatter gave way to a few yelps of pain. The stirring sounds of confusion and panic joined in the piece as a marcato of sacks of food hitting the ground joined the slapping of arms as a procession section, followed immediately by the strings of panic and the brass of fear.

From the bottom of the hill, we watched as the children in the middle of the staircase were overtaken by a swarm of yellow jackets. Human nature overtook everyone on the stairs and they all - from the bottom to the top - turned 180 degrees and began leaving the way they came. This was all the more amazing because the children who were so near the bottom of the stairs and, thus, almost away from harm ran headlong back into the cloud of insects. Right about then, several squadrons of the wasps broke off from the main fight and headed toward us at the playground. We ran screaming in all directions, and as I headed east back up the far side of the hill, I barely caught a glimpse of Deacon Chip dropping his sacks of food, turning to run back up the stairs, and tripping, blocking the way out.

I jumped over the fence, followed by another boy who I didn’t really know (he was a friend of one of the kids in our youth group). Far enough from the danger, we stood and watched from afar as the scene played out. Eventually, two of the chaperones were able to help push the severely overweight Deacon Chip up to his feet, opening the path. The other two waded into the cloud of yellow jackets to grab children and usher them out, displaying a kind of bravery I don’t think I’ve seen in person again in my life.

911 was called by a customer who happened to see things unfold from the parking lot, and emergency services arrived and took three of the most severe cases to the hospital. Another two ambulances arrived, and those paramedics along with the firefighters already on the scene treated us. I was one of the lucky ones - I managed to escape with only 11 stings. The worst case, however, was Deacon Chip’s son, Matthew, who was the proud recipient of over 100 stings across his face, arms and legs.

Which is ironic, since that’s probably how many quarters we put into that chicken-shocking machine.

We all stayed in a hotel near Cherokee that night, since the only mode of transportation we had was the church van, and there were three kids and a chaperone in the hospital. A number of parents organized a caravan that Sunday morning to come get us, which I thought was brave, since skipping church surely meant suffering the wrath of the almighty God who loves us unconditionally unless we piss him off. The next week in church, many prayers were said and many thanks were given that our merciful lord protected us against those yellow jackets and that it wasn’t “worse than it was.”

But I knew the truth. God didn’t protect us. God had nothing to do with this. Mother Nature’s guerilla attack went off exactly as planned, and produced the type of healthy respect in at least a few of us that it was intended to induce. She provides us with meals and decomposes our trash. She answers our calls and drives our instincts. She guards us while we sleep.

Do NOT fuck with her.