July 18: Mosquito bite

Jason had a love/hate relationship with the summer. He loved it because of the hot weather and the fact that school was out and that he had two months of freedom to hang with friends and family, but he hated it because of the mosquitoes.

He had a case too. In the summer, his legs would swell up like sausages. Two weeks in, they would be all bloody and crusty from his constant scratching. "Try insect repellent," I'd say. "Tried that," he'd say. "Doesn't do a bloody thing."

-

Thank God for the Charlie Brown 'Cyclopedias, which told eight-year-old me that the itch that follows a mosquito bite is an allergic reaction. Get this: there are some people out there who are not allergic to mosquitoes. They get bitten and it's about as painful as getting hit in the shoulder with a ping pong ball.

I am not one of those people.

-

How many times have I written about Jackfish Lake, which was home to the family cottage for a little over three decades? Grandpa had a cottage on the east side of that lake and many the summer evening would we spend there. By day, we'd play in the water or build castles in the sand. By night, you had to go inside. The mosquitoes were bad and they would carry you away.

Once, when I was 10, I decided I wanted to sleep in the inflatable raft on the porch of the cottage.

"Good luck with that," grandpa said.

Came in about 20 minutes later with a rash all over my back.

-

Flash forward to 1999 and I am working as a sports editor at a small newspaper somewhere in central Saskatchewan. My assignment de jour was to cover the championship tournament at one of the local golf clubs. Problem: the mosquitoes were bad. And when I say bad, I mean bad.

This one poor dude takes his ball to the teebox, lays it on the tee, and swats some mosquitoes off his arm. He winds up, then shoos a cloud of mosquitoes away from his face. Tries winding up again and then he throws the club down and starts screaming.

"I CAN'T DO THIS!!!" he yells. "I'm getting eaten alive out here and I'm wearing a full can of Off."

His fellow golfers agree. Everyone's throwing down their clubs and heading into the clubhouse. No championship tourney today. I interview the club manager and he told me that spraying that course for skeeters was now his number one priority.

I believe that was the headline: MOSQUITOES CANCEL GOLF TOURNAMENT.

-

I know mosquitoes play a vital role in the food chain. I know that frogs and bats and other animals eat 'em, but I hate 'em anyway and I will happily genocide a billion of 'em if it means spoiled little ole me can go for a walk on the trail network near where I live. I just think that it's a nice summer day, I should be able to wear a T-shirt and shorts when I go out to commune with nature. I don't want to have to don long dark clothing and netting to protect myself from the skeeters and the ticks and the hornets.

But c'est la vie.

-

When I lived in Stettler, I had me one of them bug zappers on my balcony. You know the kind? It glows all purple and it makes a zapping sound everytime a stupid mosquito electrocutes itself? That constant humming and zapping was like a symphony, a beautiful counterpoint to the orchestra of crickets that plays in the background of any prairie summer night. I'd sit out on that patio and drink me a Dr. Pepper and read a Mickey Spillane novel, just about the happiest I'd ever been in life. I was living on my own, making an okay living, and I had not a care in the world.

Except maybe a mosquito bite.

-

Kiddo right now has almost recovered from a wasp sting. It got him on the bottom of the foot while he was playing in the water park. How he howled when it bit him. It's the second time he's ever been stung. His old man has never experienced that misfortune. Too bad for me.

My son is still too young to understand the difference between a wasp sting and a mosquito bite. 

"Skeeto bite," he says, and puts my finger and his foot, hoping I will scratch.

This I do again and again and again and again and again. It has made me hate wasps as much as I hate mosquitoes.

ZAP!