Scaling the heights
My sincere apologies to the Réaumur and Rømer temperature scales – I have no choice but to unceremoniously dump them off my list of my five favourite scales. I understand that this is particularly painful for them, mirroring as it does the cruel way in which the international scientific community cast them by the wayside in favour of those upstarts, the Fahrenheit and Celsius and Kelvin scales. But I must do what I must.
The reason for this, of course, is that doing the rounds over the past few days has been the Schmidt Sting Pain Index: a scale of the relative painfulness of stings caused by the Hymenoptera order of insects (bees and wasps and ants and shit). It’s a classy piece of work, and I don’t know how I missed it the first time round. For one thing, it’s a fairly unique scale in that it applies in full to only one person in the world – its main creator, entomologist Justin O. Schmidt. It’s a scale of how badly the various insect stings hurt him, gleaned through long and agonising personal experience. While broadly generalisable to the rest of the human species, it’s really a one-man thing.
The second reason is that it is the best written scale ever. A brief excerpt:
- 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
- 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
- 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
Glorious.
I’ve always wanted to create such a scale, (as a naturalist and beekeeper of over thirty years, I’ve been stung by everything in Minnesota). My worst sting experience was with a bald-faced hornet. It was a hot July day, and one stung me on the back of my neck. It felt like someone had driven a white-hot needle into my neck with a ball-peen hammer. I literally saw stars, my vision dimmed, and my knees buckled. One second later I was stung again on my cheek, not quite as bad, but still horrible.
Comment by Steve Hansmann — March 13, 2009 @ 9:11 am