What...is a bee sting?

Today, one of my nieces called and told me that she had gotten a bee sting between two of her toes yesterday. By about 2 or so this morning, she woke up with her toes swollen. The swelling extended into her foot. There was also redness and incredible pain going through her whole foot. She was wondering what to do.

I asked her many questions, told her she should probably have a doctor look at it to determine if they consider it an allergic reaction because if she has developed an allergy to bee stings, she may need to carry an epipen with her. I told her I would look up some more information online to see what I find.

I got off the phone and my husband said, "It could be an infection." I asked him, "Can you get an infection from a bee sting?" He kind of looked at me blankly for a second and said, "You can get an infection from anything! And that could be dangerous." I said, "Yeah, I suppose you can...I hadn't thought of it I guess. Have you known of someone getting an infection from a bee sting though?" He just kind of looked at me and I don't think he even answered me..

After our conversation continued onward a little, he suddenly asked me, "What's a bee sting?" I looked at him blankly and said, "A bee sting." He said, "What is it though?" I looked at him in utter disbelief. What part of bee sting is he not getting? Our two older girls were in the room too, so a couple of us looked at him and said, "A bee sting, you know, as in a sting from a bee!" He got this little brief look of sudden understanding and just meekly said, "Oh." He didn't say anything for a moment. I think he was nonchalantly trying to move forward, wondering if he could just casually continue on to the next matter at hand. We, in the meanwhile, were all still just staring at him, wondering what kind of explanation he could possibly have for not getting something as simple as a bee sting! When he realized he wasn't getting off the hook without at least some further explanation, he kind of sheepishly chuckled and said, "I was wondering what you guys were talking about. I thought it was a beasting." I said, "It was." He said, "No, like one word...a beasting. Like beast-ing. I thought it was some condition I had never heard of...and you all seemed to know what it was!"

So later, as I was doing my due diligence and researching bee stings for my niece, I read from Wikipedia, "Bee Sting: A bee sting is stricly a sting from a bee." I read it to him. He seemed relieved to get a technical definition.

The man is brilliant. Sometimes, he just lacks common sense!