Mosquito Coast (without the coast)

Mustn’t scratch.
Mustn’t scratch.
Mustn’t scratch it will only make things worse mustn’t scratch oh fercryinoutloud OK then perhaps just a little scratch.

Ahhhhhhh, sweet relief.

Mustn’t scratch
Mustn’t scratch.

So I was out walking with one of the pupsters on Sunday morning. I try and get out for a longish hike at least one day each weekend and this spell of beautifully warm fall weather is a perfect antidote to a week spent suffocating in an office. The sky is pure cobalt blue, the aspens are shining in all their golden glory and butterflies are everywhere you look.

As are the insects.

I’ve always had a love-hate affair with insects in that I hate them while they love me. At least the biters do. For some reason, they want to eat me up, piece by tiny piece. I’m not sure if it’s the smell of fear, payback for misdeeds in a former life or if I simply taste good but invariably, if there are nibblers around, they’ll make a bee-line for me. (Bee-line! Get it?)

I’m told one of the early uses for lap-dogs was that fleas were more inclined to live on pooch than a human. Ergo, carry an ugly little dog on your lap and he’ll soon be flea-ridden while you remain comparatively free. Sad to say, it appears my role in the circle of life appears to be that of a Pekingese. In the sense that as long as I’m around, everybody else can enjoy the great outdoors while I slap, scratch and curse as the little devils eat me alive.

I once spent a couple of weeks in the far north of Australia doing volunteer work for a conservation group. We were laying the foundation for an elevated boardwalk which would allow day-trippers to experience the rain forest once ‘the wet’ set in and the land would be under 3-4 feet of water. The work involved digging holes, moving concrete blocks and worst of all, carrying twenty-foot long steel girders called perlons through the trees, sometimes for ½ a mile or more, before dropping them by the side of the path. This wasn’t too far from Kakadu National Park – Crocodile Dundee country but what the movies didn’t show, was just how steamy hot that terrain was.

From early morning ‘till dusk we toiled in the oppressive heat of the jungle, while our begrimed clothes stuck to our bodies and the sweat ran into our eyes. The air was so thick you almost had to swim through it. We smokers found ourselves uncharacteristically popular because our glowing cigarette tips were the perfect solution for removing the leeches which could be found stuck to inappropriate parts of one’s anatomy at any given time.

But no matter how grueling the work days, the evenings were the worst because that’s when the vampire mosquitoes came out to play. And they made straight for me.

Oh, everybody else took a share and the conversation was punctuated by slaps and oaths as we tried to keep them at bay. However, none were so persecuted, so abused and so miserable as I. It was rare I completed a sentence without flailing at some part of my anatomy in a vain attempt to exact retribution. Great minefields of welts sprang up on my neck, arms, shoulders and legs as the little fiends lined up to feast on my blood.

Eventually I could take it no more and began dressing in jeans and a sweatshirt every evening. That’s no picnic in 95 degree weather with 100+ degrees humidity but if I’d owned gloves and a balaclava, I would have worn them too. And still the little b******s got to me. On my wrists, on my ankles and around my head and on one memorable occasion during a late night nature call, on the tip of my willie. The pain was relentless.

After a few days my joints swelled up – the exact symptoms of some hideous tropical disease the name of which escapes me now. "Get into town and have it checked right away." I was told "You don’t mess around with that!" Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing more serious than the sheer volume of bites I’d received on such a small area of skin that had caused my flesh to balloon.

The mosskeeters chased me halfway round Australia and most of Asia and in time, I came to dread that little nasal whine. Usually it came just minutes after lights out and a few moments before I began cursing myself for not paying the extra for a hotel that provided mozzie nets. Even today, over a decade later my stomach still knots up whenever I hear that noise. Mosquito coils, scented candles, repellant with contents-banned-in-most-western-countries, I became an expert in the effectiveness of each. (They’re all useless).

When we were looking to relocate from Phoenix, I had one criterion above all. No mosquitoes. Amazingly we even had a few right there in the desert, mainly due to the influx of easterners and their lawn fetishes, not to mention the golf course which have spread like a virus in Arizona. All those sprinkler systems and artificial lakes brought them running. Bailey, at a little under 9,000 feet seemed to fit the bill and although I have seen a couple of mozzies since we moved here (having been bitten by both of them) they are blessedly rare.

So I’m not entirely sure what was noshing on me this weekend. I’ve picked up a handful of bites each summer, some of them quite painful but I don’t believe I’ve been feasted on quite like this since moving to Colorado. Both arms, my legs and the back of my neck are a rash of little red bumps, each one feeling as though I’ve been stabbed with a needle dipped in Tabasco sauce. And the itching, oh dearie me, the itching.

They tell me that eating copious amounts of garlic will deter the little blighters from coming too near. Sadly, that would also deter most humans from coming too near so it’s not entirely practical. Plus, it isn’t really much good after the event so instead; I resorted to Benadryl, my anti-histamine of choice.

Benadryl is known to cause drowsiness, although it didn’t help me sleep last night. I am however, more than usually tired today as I sit at my desk and pretend to work. The label says not to take whilst operating heavy machinery and while my laptop isn’t exactly heavy, I’m still having challenges driving it today.

So if anybody needs me, I’ll be xvcnxzzzzzzzzzzzz...