Come On Fall

8/16/2011 bugs , weather 0 Comments

For two days now, our house has been buzzing with nasty flies. It seems like I kill one, and then another one appears. I hate flies. They’re gross, annoying little bastards. I keep trying to figure out where they’re all coming from because it’s not like we stand with the door open. I checked the window screens and there’s no holes in them.

It is a mystery.

I can’t wait until it cools off because not only will the bugs go away, but this hot, muggy weather will too. Last month was absolutely miserable. We’ve lived here in North Dakota for more than 5 years now, and the summers have never been like this. It feels like we’ve been living in a swamp or rain forest all summer. Me no likes.

Last month, for the first time ever, Kevin and I experienced a tornado going through our town. Now every time the weather suddenly gets thick and muggy, we wonder if it’s going to produce another one. Right now, as I’m typing this, the sky is dark, the air is thick and muggy, and it’s thundering and lightening. I love thunderstorms, but with the air like this, it puts me on my guide. I probably shouldn’t be on the computer right now, so I’m going to try and hurry this up.

A few months ago, I was at the computer working on Dark Spirits when my hand drifted to the back of my shoulder. I felt a bump there and took my index finger and thumb and pinched around it. I had to literally peel this bump off me, and when I looked to see what it was, I freaked. It was a bug! I threw it across my desk, and instantly had the heebie-jeebies. I touched the back of my shoulder again and felt a smaller bump on that same spot. Then I thought that I better find that bug I had flung off me, just in case I got sick. So I found it crawling on the side of my computer monitor and picked it up with a piece of toilet paper. I went to the kitchen and tried squishing it with my fingers, but it wouldn’t die, so I took the handle of a knife and wacked it. That did the trick. After that, I squeezed the smaller bump and something white came out of it. I swear it looked like a head with antennas. I then took some alcohol and rubbed it all over the back of my shoulder. By this time my mind was going all Sci-Fi on me:

What if that bug had laid eggs and now I was going to have a nest of them, crawling under my skin?

I kept the white, head-looking thing, and when Kevin came home for lunch, I told him what had happened and showed him my evidence. He told me it was a tick.

BLAH!

I hate ticks.

Oh, and get this. Kevin told me that when we went to bed the previous night, he saw it on the back of my shoulder but thought it was a new mole or something. What? You gotta be kidding me? I can’t believe he didn’t say anything, and I had slept with that damn tick sucking on my blood.

Gross.

I still don’t know how it got there. The only thing I can figure is it latched onto me when I was in our yard. I don’t know, but I don’t like them. I know people who are from here thinks nothing of it. Even the farmers, they pick the ticks off of them like it’s no big deal.

Yesterday I thought I had another tick on me because I saw a round black thing on my shin. So I took some alcohol and picked at it. Thank God. It wasn’t a tick. It was just a scab.

I can’t wait for fall and winter because not only do I love that time of year, but it gets rid of the swamp weather and bugs. . . . Come on fall.