Sometimes you think, There is a wasp in my bed.

Of course there isn’t a wasp in your bed. Your bed is neatly made, your windows are closed, and it’s October—late in the season for wasps. Why would there be a wasp in your bed?

You have no evidence to think there is. You search your mind for a reason for your suspicions, but there is nothing. There is a wasp in my bed, you think again, stubbornly.

There isn’t. Of course there isn’t. You are a superstitious meat computer malfunctioning once again, thin-slicing false positives because millions of years of evolution have primed you to detect threats far more often than they are actually present in your privileged modern lifestyle. There is no lion lurking by the dumpster, there are no wolves hiding in the grass—there is no goddamn wasp in your goddamn bed, no matter what your primitive defensive software insists to the contrary.

You climb into bed, smugly satisfied with the victory of sapient logic over reptilian fear, forebrain over cerebellum.

And then the wasp in your bed stings you between your legs.