Pow! Pow!
He hit me, twice, in quick succession - once just under my left armpit and a second time, lower, on that little ridge of disappointing softness that rides just above the waistline – before falling out of my shirt to the ground where I unceremoniously dispatched him under the toe of my Keen.
It’s not the first time I’ve been hit this summer, nor will it be the last. It’s but a small part of the price one pays for spending life outside. And wasps are just the beginning. Caustic plant life, sun, and bugs bearing all manner of insidious irritation keep an outdoorsman harboring a constant itch of one sort or another. At least, out here, no one sees you scratch.
So you do what you can to prepare, prevent, and, if avoidance doesn’t work (and it seldom does), prescribe for the nagging little nasties that lie in the weeds. Even a diehard naturalist needs a little chemical weaponry now and again.
Because it’s a war out there. War.
Note: Too weird. As I am preparing to post this I receive my daily Fly Talk email from Field and Stream and, to my amazement, it's Kirk Deeter talkin' about Fels Naptha soap. Great minds...
Nothing like a little petroleum distillate to cure what ails ya. Funny timing too.
ReplyDeleteThe power of wasps. They can make a big man squirm and scream while by standers wonder if he just took some of the 'brown acid' or something.
Brown acid? I have no idea what you're talking about, RR. No idea whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteNow wasps, that's another story.
Woodstock Hippie thing.... I have no idea either, but I hear it'll make ya dance funny.
DeleteGotta tell you... in the midst of my first bout with chiggers in more than 20 years. Oddly--I didn't get them fishing. I didn't get bit once while fishing the mangroves of Florida. I got them while dining outside after a south Florida rainstorm.
ReplyDeleteI hate redbugs, Chris. The true bane of the south. And you never know when you'll pick them up. Feelin' your pain, brother.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you "where" you'll pick up chiggers!
ReplyDelete