Much like the internet, the world of science is a dark and mysterious place full of clinically insane people clamouring to do untold things to their own body in the hopes of gaining the occasional knowing nod from a complete stranger. Case in point: Justin O. Schmidt.
[jwplayer CkP9AWwW]
Schmidt is a well-known entomologist renowned not just for his research into the toxin levels of insect bites, but for devising the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which might well be the most unintentionally hilarious piece of scientific writing known to man.
The index chronicles the sting of various insects and rates the power of them on a scale from 0.0 (no sting at all) to 4.0 and beyond (Satan is hauling you anus-first to the deepest pit of hell).
But beyond that, the stings – which Schmidt willingly subjected himself to – have incredibly flowery descriptions of the experience.
The yellowjacket wasp, for example, has a sting the index describes as “hot and smoky, almost irreverent; imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.”
The scale reaches from the sweat bee – “light, ephemeral, almost fruity” – all the way up to the godforsaken bullet ant – “like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.”
Crucially, however, the Schmidt Index fails to assess one key criteria: How much these stings, if administered to me (a big baby), would cause me to load my pants with crap.
This egregious scientific oversight, I rectify thusly:
10) SWEAT BEE
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 1.0
Pants Shatness levels: Them britches be dry as hell.
Barely counts as a bee. This winged bitch has all the menace of a light nap. Has to have metallic variants for people to even pay attention to it. A showpony, pure and simple. I spit at it.
9) FIRE ANT AKA SPICY BOY
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 1.2
Pants Shatness levels: A slightly peppery anoos.
Dumbass ant. Red-headed copper lookin’ ass hairy leg ass armadillo butt ass lookin’ ant. Couldn’t be content to hang out in South America all its life so it had to find a way to come over here and wreck everything. This ant is piss, and I will not abide it.
8) BULLHORN ACACIA ANT
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 1.8
Pants Shatness levels: One single, solitary spot of piss.
A respectable, handsome ant. Polite in its demeanour and humble in its doings. A quick sting on the leg and a tip of the cap and its on its way, leaving me hobbling in light agony but unable to do anything other than respect it.
7) HONEY BEE
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 2.0
Pants Shatness levels: A hard, wet fart.
Did you know bees are dying at an alarming rate? Did you know that they can also fuck off and continue to fuck off and once they’ve fully fucked off they can fuck off some more? This apis can a-kiss my ass. Get outta here.
6) YELLOWJACKET
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 2.0
Pants Shatness levels: One nug, rounded and well-formed.
I have absolutely no hesitation in saying I could bash a wasp. In a one-on-one fight, I reckon I could beat the living piss out of one.
5) BALD-FACED HORNET
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 2.0
Pants Shatness levels:Trying to hold it, cannot hold it.
Now we’re getting somewhere. The common hornet is a creature designed and put on this earth purely to be a jerk. Its sole purpose for existing is to be an asshole. It stings wantonly. It takes no prisoners. And it looks like an alien jet in a movie where they try to invade Earth but like Michael B. Jordan or Jason Statham or whoever shows up and kicks their ass and everyone celebrates because they think they’ve gone away but you know Michael B. Jordan or Jason Statham or whoever isn’t gonna live forever so they’re only gonna come back years later and now they’re all het up and pissy on alien juice meaning ultimately we’re pretty screwed? I hate them.
4) RED HARVESTER ANT
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 3.0
Pants Shatness levels: The drizzling shits. Watery. Consistent. Bad.
Picnic-ruining kents. Cowards who hunt in packs and still have the gall to hit you from behind. The most dishonourable of all the ants. The Red Harvester Ant invites you around to its house, serves you LA Ice cola, gives you the Mad Catz controller and selects Oddjob. It picks Sub-Zero and spams the freeze move. It chooses Blanka and jumps until the clock runs out. Absolute dogs.
3) PAPER WASP
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 3.0
Pants Shatness levels: Basically a jammed-open soft-serve machine at this point.
You know how earlier I said I could bash a wasp? Not this wasp. This wasp scares me sideways. Look at its horrible, menacing glare. It looks at you like you’ve just bashed its Nan. Don’t ever bash a paper wasp’s Nan.
2) TARANTULA HAWK
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 4.0
Pants Shatness levels: Complete crotchal blowout.
No. No no no no. Absolutely not, no. No thank you. These things suck. These things SUCK. They are to making human beings want to evacuate their own bodies what Ritz are to the cracker game. The cream of the crop. The absolute business. The Bob Pettit of givin’ a sting.
1) BULLET ANT
Schmidt Sting Pain Index rating: 4.0+
Pants Shatness levels: All shit. The whole pant, shit. Might as well have just not worn pants at all.
Fuck these things all the way to hell. This tiny little ant – so intensely small – packs a wallop so large that being hauled balls-first across an active volcano while being forced to sign up for the Liberal Democrats would be far less cruel. I wish to never encounter one of these devil creatures in real life. I will actively avoid travelling to any country they inhabit. I will advocate passionately for the immediate murder of all other ants upon sight for fear of it somehow being one of them. They are purely the work of the Satan, and definitive proof of the existence of hell, which is where you are headed if one gives you a lick. Ass! Ass, I say repeatedly!
