That is the question a university student asked me Thursday night at a Dining Etiquette seminar I conducted at Ottawa University (in Kansas, not Canada). This particular dining etiquette seminar was held to prepare students for upcoming job interviews. About a third of job interviews are lost over poor dining skills, so it’s worth brushing up on etiquette before tackling an interview.
But back to the flying wasp hovering over the dining table. The student asked, “do we wave a broom around and hope we can smash him?” I laughed and responded, “probably not the best approach. Let’s redirect that wasp toward a window.” The young man opened a window, then picked up a table tent with a metal base. He held it up high, guiding the wasp — which unfortunately didn’t follow his lead and instead did a nose dive toward me. With calm, quiet dignity (I hope), I stepped to the side, at which time the wasp chose to redirect his flight to the glass of the window, not the open window. The “helpful” student promptly smashed the wasp on the glass with the metal base. As he started to replace the table tent back on the dining table, I quickly said, “come with me.” I grabbed a napkin from the punch table, exited the room and wiped off the smashed wasp, then scrubbed the bottom of the weapon.
We returned to the room, and as the young man replaced the clean stand on the dining table and closed the window, I smiled and said, “now that is the proper etiquette for removing a wasp.”