Posts Tagged "bite"

Bring Your Own Proboscis

Dear Kid,

(Actual Invitation)

Please join us for a lovely buffet dinner. Bring your own proboscis. DearKidLoveMom.comPlease join us for a lovely buffet dinner. Light appetizers. Specialties include knees, ankles, elbows, back of neck, and calves. Slight danger involved but this is too tasty to pass up. Expect unseemly expletives from the buffet. Bring your own proboscis. Men not invited.

Meet us in the backyard while Mom is gardening. No need to wait for seating. Attack at your pleasure.

Excuse me while I go take a bath in hydrocortisone.

Love, Mom

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The Mosquitoes Were Really Bad Last Night (Really, Really Bad)

Dear Kid,

This is not a mosquito. DearKidLoveMom.comI look like I have the measles.

Just to be clear, I don’t have the measles, small pox, chicken pox, or even a bad case of acne.

What I have are mosquito bites.

A lot of them.

Enough of them so that I expect to see a great reduction when I step on the scale.

Enough of them so that the Hoxworth Blood Center has called to tell me I’ve exceeded my donation level for the year.

Enough so that this year’s annual vampire ball is being moved out of southern Ohio.

Enough so that there isn’t enough hydrocortisone on the planet to handle them all.

Enough so that I look like I have the measles.

I did not invite the mosquitoes over for a festive meal. I didn’t invite them for a small nosh. I didn’t even invite them for a meal-free get together.

There was no inviting whatsoever.

Mosquitoes are not big on etiquette.

Or on spelling, since you can spell the plural mosquitos or mosquitoes and no one seems to care.

They are, however, big on helping themselves to whatever is in the ‘frig (and by “’frig” I mean my veins).

Dad was not sympathetic; Dad repels mosquitoes. Dad is a virtual mosquito umbrella. He says it’s because he was wearing long pants that he wasn’t bitten, but I was bitten through my clothing. Sleeves were not a deterrent. In fact, mosquitoes seem to have an affinity for red shirts. Or at least the shoulders underneath red shirts.

Excuse me while I go slather on a gallon or two of hydrocortisone.

Love, Mom

 

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I. Have. Had. It. | Enough is Enough and Other Terms Lacking Endearment

Dear Kid,

For the record, I hate ants. Loathe them when they are inside (by the way, the ant traps did a reasonable if not stellar job of getting rid of the ants that were in the kitchen). And I have now found a new way to hate them outside.

I thought I was good with the “wildlife belongs in the wild” approach to critters. Turns out, I needed to work on the definitions. For years, I’ve assumed that “the wild” meant anything outside the confines of our home.

This weekend, that changed. Spectacularly.

“The Wild” now means “anywhere outside our house where I’m not.”

Evil. Horrible.Awful.Painful. Biting. Nasty. Ants. We are now at war. DearKidLoveMom.comAnd it wasn’t coyotes, or wasps (yuck), or any other critter you might normally think of when you think of wildlife. No, no. it was the ants. The picnic ants.

I was weeding (because that’s just how we live it up here on Father’s Day) and I disturbed an ant colony. I hadn’t meant to, it just turned out that several billion ants had taken up residence under a huge clump of weeds near the holly and as I moved rocks and removed weeds they objected.

Normally, I think of “ant objection” as lots of tiny ants running all over the place. Which I don’t entirely love, but live and let live. This was different.

Seven billion ants swarmed around, crawling on the rocks (the sight was enough to make me reconsider eating lunch today), running hither and thither on the driveway, and (wait for it) crawling on me.

At first I was relatively tolerant. Off you go little ant, I thought brushing a black speck off my leg. Seriously, get off, I thought brushing two off my arm. Get The @#$%@ Off!! I thought as I moved away from the area.

I yanked a few more weeds, told Daddy he could rip out the last few in the ant infested area, and went inside.

After showering off six pounds of dirt (I am not a neat gardener) I discovered that this particular ant colony had not just sent out scouts and scavengers. They had sent out the warriors. Well-armed warriors.

“They bit you?” said Pi.

“They bit the cr*p out of me,” I said. Please excuse the language, but the hydrocortizone hadn’t kicked in at that point.

I’m not a fan of biting, never have been. And while I won’t go out and get ant poison or anything like that—they are after all in their rightful area (by which I mean they aren’t in the house)—any mercy I might have shown in the past is now a thing of the past. By which I mean I’m sending out invitations to birds to stop by and have a snack.

At least I plan to once the itching subsides.

Love, Mom

 

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