I don’t know about where YOU live, but mosquitos around here are pretty nightmarish, and this is a GOOD year- when there aren’t as many as have been in the past.
When I get bitten by mosquitos (or whatever word it is- attacked, sucked, fed upon, stung, zapped… whatever) I spend the next few hours with my skin crawling, convinced I’ve got the little bastards all over me.
I’m itching all over now just writing this.
If I were neck deep in a lake to hide from mosquitos, I guarantee I’d still feel like they were all over me.
I have always been ‘smorgasblood’ to any female mosquito around. If there is one in the building she will have me for lunch. You say mosquitos like you? If we are together I can guarantee I will be the sampled one. The guy in the lake there… wuss. Yeah we all hate them singing in our ears in the key of ‘annoying’ but. It should have made him pedal faster!
Well, mosquitoes secrete a liquid that breaks down your skin and makes your blood easier to extract. So, in a way, when you’re bit, they ARE still IN you…
And histamines. Hence after they bite, you have that anticoagulant they put in there and all that other mosquito spit (and whatever the mosquito picked up and ‘shared’ with you). It takes that lady about 5 meals of blood to be able to produce her eggs. So you can only hope you were the first and not the last she snacked on. If you are able to take anthistamines, take an OTC pill after being chewed… After about 20 minutes most of the swelling will be down but still… I did have to scratch some spots. But real antbites-I have a lethal yard war going on and am fighting back with the ant bait… those bites take forever to quit itching and heal up. Only thing worse-catfleas. Those never seem to heal and they make antbites look like pikers. Let us not mention chiggers… (Curt, you scratching yet?)
Heh, been there, done that. Being in Japan, though, the greater threats are heat rash and skin molds. I think the closest mosquito is in Okinawa, and that’s only because the current travel ban prevents it from taking a ferry out to Hawai’i.
The mosquitoes here in southern Illinois are vicious. They’re nothing compared to the wasps, aka demons from hell, that attacked me last week.
Repellent ASAP!! I thought they were bad in Vietnam till I got to Alaska. Their swarm sounded like B29s on a bombing run. Seen a caribou run off a cliff trying to get away from a swarm! Military repellent just seemed to make us taste better.
And while COVID is bad West Nile Virus is worse!!
Here I used to covet military repellant. Growing up, an hour away was a major air base and cousins had married military.. they would get 95% DEET in an oil carrier. Clear little bottle, black lettering on it, one ounce. That stuff would keep the mosquitos off me, and we’d beg the military members to smuggle me some-apparently that was pretty hard to do, and I hoarded that stuff like you wouldn’t believe. Year I graduated Canada started making Muskol, same stuff and I started getting my fix there. Only a serious amount of that stuff from hat on head to shoes on feet would keep me from being a bloody booger. Where I live now they spray regularly to deal with West Nile. And year before last I caught a Tiger and it was so big they thought it was a Galinipper. (It turned out to be in between sizes). I turned it over alive to the extension service and they sent it in to the state to positively identify it and confirm it was ’empty’ (no virus). Friends in Alaska, doing research and in a trailer house that had liberal amounts of silicone caulk everywhere… and she said you could hear them outside that trailer, Eerie. Creepy. Icky.
It’s horseflies that would drive me into the lake. They attack like a shark, circling closer and closer until they have the proper level of fear sweat dripping.
Decades ago my father bought a John Deere 4020 used. It had a cab. It was noisy and it was dirty and it trapped all the horseflies in with you. It did not have air… it didn’t have anything. Those flies knew you were a captive audience and you drove with one hand and used your hat in the other to beat off the horseflies. Raid did not help. Finally it got down to NOBODY would get in that tractor. All refused. Dad drove it one day. The cab came off the next morning. Nice tractor. Bad design.
Did anyone mention the leeches in the lake?
During bootcamp we had a serious issue come up. Someone decided that they wanted “OUT” and broke up a face razor as a means to get there. The Drill instructors did not disclose this fact as it happened at 4 am. At 6 am we went out to eat and then straight to the obstacle course. They then stopped us midway through the course, to form back up.
The Senior DI’s and their bosses wanted to know if anyone had seen this recruit making preparations. One idiot decided to say they did, but had no answer as to why he hadn’t reported it to anyone. Needless to say, we were at attention for hours while they grilled this idiot.
Anyone who caught the DI’s attention got ONE shot to lock it back up or they got to go through the course. Until the DIs said to stop. One idiot, who was swatting at the trained sand fleas was on his fifth run through.
Needless to say, I was NOT swatting at mosquitoes that day.
Black fly buzzes loudly around me, and I knew I was in trouble. It lands three inches above my knee and decides that it is time to eat. Black flies use a caustic vomit to liquefy flesh and drink the slurry. I had a trail of blood, running down my leg, as this damn thing was literally eating me. I had nail marks in my palm from trying not to scream.
Of course the idiot beside me was gawking at all this, moving his head all around and saying “HEY.. HEY! You got a fly on ya!! DUDE!” not even bothering whispering. I grunted “SHUT IT!” out of the corner of my mouth. Which.. of COURSE.. got the DI’s attention.
SGT Boyette gave the idiot next to me, the stink eye. Idiot locked it up. He looked over at me, one eyebrow raised when he looked down at my bleeding leg. With a finger and a thumb, he flicked the fly off, hitting the bleeding wound directly. I managed to hold my tongue, barely. SOB said nothing to me, and just stalked back to the pack of butter bars and DIs.
I am pretty much ignorant of bug bites these days. Can’t feel them. If they happen, I only notice them after they itch.