Gather 'round the campfire, boys and girls. Auntie Marsha would like to tell you a story about innocents abroad. Well, not abroad exactly, but certainly in unfamiliar parts. And what happened to them in their ignorance.
Now then. A few weeks ago my husband began scratching at what seemed to be bug bites. No See 'Um bites, to be specific. I've suffered No See 'Ums in the three summers we've lived here and it seemed odd to us that he'd only begun to be afflicted now. But then again, he's been getting allergy shots and he's a bit thinner so perhaps, we figured, his blood chemistry had changed just enough to be attractive to the little beasties. Eventually we all exhibited signs of attack. Huge welts, creeping hives, and the tell-tale scratch marks of attempts at self-relief.
Now the thing about No See 'Um bites is that they are killer. They itch for weeks and make welts much larger than the size of either the bug or the bite itself may seem to warrant. Sometimes there are little blisters along the bite site, which can pop open and spread the bite love around. It's not unknown for people to die from (large numbers of) No See 'Um bites, a fact that has given me more than one shudder over the past couple weeks.
Over the period of about a week our bites got worse and worse and more and more numerous. In an attempt to keep them out of the house we caved to the heat and upped the A/C, closed the doors and windows (the bugs can fit through the little squares of screening mesh) and sprayed both us and our bedding repeatedly through each day. We burned gallons of citronella oil. To no avail. Sleeping became an bleary ordeal possible only with copious amounts of benadryl and calamine.
And then we bombed the house. I hate the idea of bug killers in general. But I hate itchy welts covering my kids' bodies more. So we vacated the house for a dreadful four hour outing and returned to wash the bedding anew and hope for a better night and more sleep (that, ultimately, was not forthcoming).
Flash forward a few more itchy, scratchy days. So we had a guy over earlier today to help us prioritize some DIY home repair stuff. As he and my husband (hereinafter referred to as Brainiac) were walking along our picturesque brick path he pointed to a lovely groundcover (that we inherited from the house's previous owners) and said, "With a little one wandering around, you're gonna want to get rid of this poison ivy as soon as possible."
Let's pick up the convo from there, shall we?
Brainiac: Uh, poison ivy? There, bordering the walk?
The Guy: Yeah, all that stuff here, and there and there and there. All poison ivy. What did you think it was?
Brainiac: Uh. Um. Hm. Poison ivy, eh?
The Guy: Do you have stuff to deal with this?
Brainiac: Uh, sure. Let's go inside.
So they came inside where The Guy took one look at the welts and hives along my legs and forearms and said, "See. Poison ivy. Wow. You got it bad."
And so, little ones. The innocents in the country believed their poison ivy patch to be a lovely little groundcover. Green Acres, indeed.
RIP Eddie Albert. ...just give me that countryside
An Eddie Albert Memorial Post.