Les Mouches
Of course, being up north has its peculiar challenges as well. When the weather turns baking hot and the Canadian breeze dies, the air is filled with buzzing tormentors - a plague, it would seem, sent from the forest to those who dare to invade its solitude.
I’m talking flies, man…deer flies, horse flies, and those absolutely merciless snipers of ankles and backs-of-knees: those “little black flies” from Dante’s imagination, it would seem.
What are we humans to do? We can sit on the beach wrapped in so many towels we look like Aunt Dahlia on the one and only cruise she took in 1959, or we can soak ourselves in DEET, which not only keeps bugs away, but friends and family, too. Try that sometime, then go jump in the lake…and resurface only to realize that all your protection has just been washed away. Your pasty white back now resembles a giant slab of beef to the army circling overhead. If you listen closely you can hear “Banzai!” just before the bite is put on you.
Did I mention there are mosquitoes up here too? Buzz off!
Have I forgotten - I believe it was Erma Bombeck who first enunciated my feelings on Canadian mosquitoes. Something akin to, “It’s like giving blood at the Red Cross without the cookie,” and, “the only indication is that your tan goes pale.” Although, of course, with our mosquitoes, there is much more indication.
Say, have you seen those tourist-trap souvenirs you can get in any small Canadian town, the “Mosquito Trap” (just like a bear trap, and the mosquitoes aren’t much smaller), the “Mosquito Skinner” (make your own fur coat!), and the “Mosquito Zapper” (your very own miniature skeeter laser).
Comment by Rhys — July 20, 2005 @ 8:00 am
Having been born and raised in Mississippi, it was not until I was 24 and had moved to the Rocky Mountains that I realized camping out could actually be fun!
Comment by Amy — July 20, 2005 @ 10:23 pm