Despite the fact I am not a cicada, perhaps my most narrow escape in this life—a decade or so ago—involved one of these ferocious-looking beasts. I had sat down to go potty in the downstairs bathroom of my house and was only just making myself at home when I heard a very loud, very deep buzz-buzz-buzz coming from some indeterminate but uncomfortably close location. After a moment's contemplation, I came to the conclusion it might be coming from under the toilet seat. Very calmly, I stood up, lifted the seat, and—sure enough—there he was, a big old Cicada-Killer Wasp sitting there on the rim of the toilet bowl, looking somewhat peeved.
Now, in general, the Cicada-Killer Wasp is not hostile to human beings, and unless you fuck with one, he probably isn't going to sting you. Still, under these circumstances, a particularly sensitive wasp might consider himself being fucked with. As much as I regret doing so, I killed him graveyard dead on the spot, but under the circumstances it was inevitable that this encounter was going to end badly for one of us. I confess I have never been able to shake from my mind the resulting unpleasantness had things gone the other way.
That is all.