I was riding down a rural two lane road in the upper peninsula of Michigan on the second day of a planned four day trip from Minneapolis, around Lake Superior, and back home. I suddenly felt a sharp pain on the back of my neck under my bandana. I figured it must be a bee sting and reached back with my hand to flick it out of there. Well, it must have been a wasp because as I was digging around with my finger, while moving down the road at about 65mph (104kph), the damn thing stung me again.
So I root around inside the bandana a bit more vigoriously and the little shit stings me again (that's three). I decide that this is now gone far enough and pull over to the side of the road so that I can go after this guy without the distraction of trying to ride the bike. As I dismount I get stung again (four). Now I'm furious and not thinking too clearly.
I start to take off my jacket so that I can get at this sucker but the jacket gets stuck about half way off - it seems that I forgot to take off my gloves. As I'm fiddling around trying to get my gloves off with my arms trapped at my side by the half removed jacket I get stung again (five). I instinctively fling my arm up to my neck but because my arms are still trapped at my side all I do is throw myself off balance and fall on the ground landing on my face. I get to watch a small rock dig a nice deep gouge right in front of my right eye in my brand new $25 Arai anti-scratch face shield.
As I'm lying there watching the ants about an inch away I get stung again (six). I was so exhausted that I couldn't get any angrier so I just layed there for a while trying to figure out how I was going to get back on my feet without using my hands (they were still stuck in the jacket). I now know how a turtle feels laying on its back.
Eventually I made it back on my feet but not before I put another gouge in the face shield. I never did find that wasp. That evening in the motel I found seven big red welts on the back of my neck. I don't know where the seventh one came from - I must have miscounted. The moral of the story is that even something as simple and trivial as a bandana can sometimes cause trouble that there was no way to predict and there will be nothing you can do about it. That's what motorcycle touring is about, get used to it.
Not yet done.