It’s glorious today. My office window is wide open, and all day the cooing of wood pigeons, the rumble of trains and the rustle of the sycamore just outside have been my soundtrack. All soothing, gentle summery sounds. And then a bee got in.
It was quite tense for a while – a large bee getting crosser and crosser, hurling itself repeatedly against the pane of glass that DOESN’T open, while I tried to persuade it up to the open section and freedom. (I don’t know which of us was more keen on this outcome.)
To the bee, the glass it was battering itself against looked like the only option. It had no way of knowing that the unpromising strip of plastic just above was the way out. So it kept on battering, until it was so exhausted that it fell to the floor. At which point I summoned up the courage to trap it in the classic glass/cardboard combination and take it outside. I don’t rate its chances: it’s still lying there feebly. (But at least I don’t have to watch it die now, or risk stepping on it in bare feet.)
If you’re battering yourself against the wrong pane, it may be the solution is closer than you think, just the other side of a little bit of lateral thinking.