Bug Off! She Said

We had a great day Monday, our first day free of incidents in over a week. Did a little food shopping, bought a pair of shorts at WalMart for $8 – reduced from $10! – came home, wrote a little bit, had some wine, made a great late dinner of ribs and the best corn I’ve ever eaten, took a nice long walk and headed back to watch some TV before bedtime.

Then the plague struck. Somehow, when we weren’t looking, at least ten million tiny little gnats, as I called them when I was a child, or no-see-ems, as I’ve also heard them called, invaded our RV. They were everywhere! In my hair, up my nose, on my computer screen, on the TV screen, in the food, surrounding every light source, coating the ceiling, everywhere.

John grabbed the fly swatter and started systematically – and quite gently, I might add – beating the little suckers to death. He swatted for about 15 minutes, got winded, and handed the tool to me. I took up the cause. There were bodies all over. On the floor, in my hair, as I’ve said, in our clothing, in the cherries we’d so merrily plopped in a bowl to snack on, on every piece of furniture, and to add insult to injury, even some on the poor dog, who hadn’t so much as barked at them.

And let me tell you something. Bug repellant doesn’t kill these things. I sprayed half a can at them and they simply kept flying. They laughed in my face, spit in my eye, and, as Monty Python once said in a movie, “peesed in my general direction.”

Fortunately and for some strange reason, they never entered the bedroom, so we escaped to our nest and kept the door closed. That’s when a skunk decided to take up residence underneath the camper.

Now here’s another learnin’ for you: skunks don’t have to raise their tails and squirt their scent at anything to stink. They just do. All the time. Skunk smell gets into your pores and invades your nose and sticks around long after Pepe Le Pew has departed. And for me, that means no sleep. My nose is closed with an allergic reaction to the smell, my skins feels all itchy and buggy from the gnats, and I just took a Tylenol PM to get to sleep.

So while I wait for the soporific to work, I’m sitting here writing, wondering if there’s another pestilence due me before dawn. There are at least 15 no-see-ems dancing around my computer screen, despite the fact that I smell of bug repellent. The arrogant little bastards. Just wait until tomorrow. I’m going to the store for some Raid Yard Guard and spraying this entire RV, inside and out. They’ll be some sorry little critters, that’s all I have to say.
Betty