Have you ever "stirred the hornet's nest"?
“Stirring the hornet’s nest” is a great metaphor for doing something that resulted into trouble or downright danger for the one who disturbed or disrupted what common sense usually labels as something better ignored. Yet it could also mean taking up a noble cause and risk getting into a fight. Have you ever foolishly or valiantly stirred a hornet’s nest and could you elaborate on the experience?
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26 Answers
Yes, in another thread. Today.
I’m not so much a stirrer but I have gotten into many fights (physical & mental battles of will) defending others who were not up to the task themselves……. I don’t like bullies, in the real world or this. :-/
Yes, often, but famously when I went to war with my psycho ex-boss.
I’m with @Scooby on this one. In my high school days, I was a klutz at sports (I don’t have depth perception in my vision), and can’t catch a baseball to save my life. Thus, I was despised by bullies around the world. To this day, bullies make my blood boil, and I get carried away when I encounter one either in real life or here on Fluther or on Answerbag or elsewhere…
My first out-of-college job was at a place where there was over 60 years of systemic abuse of the kids there. The kids had various degrees of disabilities and were unable to defend themselves and when they tried to tell their parents, the program was able to use their disabilities against them and discount what they said.
This was 1998 and kids were being thrown into the wall, restrained on the floor while naked, being fed outdated food, dragged by their ankles (resulting in rug burns) and pulled around by their hair. I did my research and found out this had been going on for decades—and nobody knew just how long. The earliest I could figure out was 60 years. I documented and then reported to the program director. I was ignored then fired.
I went to the state governing board, the ACLU, Child protection, different agencies—none of them believed me even with my documentations and I was written off as a disgruntled ex-employee. I lost my job, one of the sons of the people working there worked the hospital and sent fraudulent credit collection reports on me and messed up my credit—it took 4 years to clean that up because they wanted me to prove I didn’t owe the fictional money. It was horrible—
The redeeming grace here is—the kids I protected and worked hard to help finally became old enough to fight the system themselves and ONE employee had been listening to me all along. HE eventually became the program director, issued me an apology 8 years later, asked me to come back, and almost all the kids I worked with sought me out one way or another to say “Hi.” Yep—THAT was a hornet’s nest for sure.
@linguaphile It took a dauntless soul to go stir that nest for sure. Bravo!
@mazingerz88 I would hope most people would want to do something under the same circumstances. I still don’t understand how the workers had gotten so desensitized to it.
Would you believe it was something on the Disney channel that motivated me to do something? It was a very short scene where someone looked in a mirror and said “In 5 years, what will you think of what you did or did not do today? In 5 years, will it matter?” I realized, if I didn’t do something, in 5 years I would be disgusted with myself for doing nothing.
Did it a lot as a kid. Now I try not to do it but when I do it… well I know that a hornet will sting when it’s cornered and I’m prepared for any type of retaliation. ^^
/looks at you oddly
You don’t know me very well, or you would already know that I have a habit of doing exactly that. Fortunately for me, I’m kind of like a honey badger; I have thick skin, and I don’t give a fuck. Go ahead, sting away!
Sometimes knowingly, other times not so knowingly.
Just seems to happen here mostly when I make a post, hardly ever in the non-cyber world.
When I was younger, I used to be very confrontational, but over time, I learned diplomacy.
Yes, when the nest needed to be stirred but everyone around was afraid to do it I did. I’m not a person who rocks the boat for kicks. I only do it if someone is being abused.
I guess I have a bit of a reputation within the family now. When there is a situation that needs to be acted on everyone calls me. <sigh> whimps
I have, yeah. Once I was complaining about this girl who was just really annoying, so my friend texts her that he’s angry with her. The whole thing blew out of proportion, and they haven’t talked since. However, they rarely talked before then, and he already didn’t care for her. It just set him off.
Not intentionally, usually. I don’t tend to like confrontation but I have said things that inevitably did stir things up because I wouldn’t have felt right keeping quiet.
i.e. my mother’s boyfriend – who I do get along with well for the most part – will say something that I think is uncalled for (he’s a major conspiracy theorist which I’m fine with, but he often goes from debating something to getting out of line with generalizations and some rather prejudice remarks) and I won’t just sit around and let everything he says go unchallenged.
Regarding hornet’s nests, I always have a saying, “Too high, don’t die.”
@MRSHINYSHOES I thought of that as more of “whacking the hornets nest with a stick” than stirring…
I’m also with @Scooby on this one.
I don’t like people who purposely cause trouble for their own amusement. Well, other than my husband, of course. ;)
Yeah, with my foot.
When I was about 6–8 years old, I kicked a semi-hollow column that was home to a hornet’s nest. Luckily only one of them flew out and stung me before I escaped.
@MRSHINYSHOES & @jerv – Actually, actually, that’s more of “shooting a nuclear warhead at the hornets nest” than doing anything to it with a stick :-p
I’ve never “stirred” the hornet’s nest, but I may have kicked it once or twice…
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