RV Honey

A man, writer, sat outside a 41-year old RV, a union-made Winnebago with an 8-track player. The RV doesn’t drive anymore, but he always seemed to drive somewhere interesting in his mind when writing inside it.

It was a sunny morning and the man sipped coffee, wondering about lost friends and lost loves. A morning can do that to him sometimes.

A bee buzzed by. Then another. More bees. He recognized them as honey bees.

He followed their flight and saw them hover above the hood of the rig and then find their way around two Oregon license plates he’d placed on the windshield for decoration. He stood up for closer inspection and roused the bees from what he surmised was a hive somewhere behind the license plates and where the windshield met the body of the rig. They were making honey inside the RV!

His first thought: oh shit, I’ve got to hose or smoke them out. I can’t have a beehive in there.

The man’s neighbor joined him and suggested some death spray. The neighbor quickly retrieved a can and the man held it with his hand for a second and then handed it back to him.

No way. He’d given up that kind of thing two decades ago. He’d talked ants out of the kitchen. He’d asked mice to leave the closet. He’d told deer to lay off the garden. He’d encouraged moles to make molehills.

It always works. Try it.

The man returned to his coffee and watched the bees work.

Some months from now, he will attempt to harvest honey from the RV. He has no idea how to do it, but he’ll find an old book that will teach him. He plans on making some cornbread for the occasion, buttering it up, and then slathering it with the RV honey, Oregon RV honey.