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October 8, 2007

PEST CONTROL

Lately it seems everyone I know is suffering from one plague or another. I’ve heard reports of mice and fleas in apartments, rats in basements, termites in the timber of weekend houses. My neighbor across the street, who boards dogs, has had a sudden infestation of fleas. Another neighbor, who found a nice-looking blanket in the trash, now has bedbugs. Despite my animals, I haven’t any fleas or ticks, thank God, though gnats swarm predictably around the cat dish if left out too long; and huge flies buzz through the screenless windows to bang against the walls; and the ever-present drosophila dependably scarf up any scraps of onion skin; and the moths must be having a field day among my closeted sweaters. But no bedbugs, so far; my plinth must be too austere for bugs who like beds. And I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been mouse free for five years now, ever since the arrival of Izzy and Poe. In the B.C. [Before Cat] era, I often felt furry-scurries across my pillow in the dark. Switching on the light and seeing the tiny things, I’d scream “eek!” exactly as in those cartoons whose plot involved an eeking, shrieking girl leaping onto a piano with a discordant crash to escape a mouse. Contemptible behavior, but I did it too, minus the piano. Whenever I happened to surprise the mice by going to the bathroom in the wee hours, I'd catch them cozily tucked into my shoes, like a family of Stuart Littles.

So no mice, rats, bedbugs, or fleas, but I do have one unwelcome nocturnal visitor. A mosquito. I think it’s the same individual every night: an elusive, persistent, one-bug pestilence. It waits until I doze off to bite. Sometimes its whining whirr -- so much like a microscopic vacuum cleaner or helicopter -- wakes me, but before I can get the light on, I’m jabbed. Last night it was my right cheek. Reflexively I slapped my face, hard, and stumbled into the bathroom to assess the damage, clicking the sailing-ship night-light on. At three in the morning, when few of us are at our attractive best, I watched incredulously as a giant welt bloomed on my bleary, greenish-grayish visage. Of course I immediately thought of Gregor Samsa and hastily jumped back in bed. I wrapped myself up in the sheets from head to foot and hoped the bloodsucker felt sated. For the rest of the night, it seemed, I applied that juvenile remedy to allay the itch, which all Florida kids know. You inscribe an X in the welt with your thumbnail. But I'm open to other suggestions. My friend across the street, the one with the fleas, found an anti-insect lemon potion on the Internet. She recited it to me over the phone. It involves a lot of slicing and zesting, boiling pulp down into a tincture and thickening it into an ointment, etc. A lot of work for one mosquito, it seemed. Another antidote could be a mosquito net.

Naturally, the bugs will leave when it turns cold. If it ever does. A few minutes ago, as I walked sweatily down the street swatting at no-see-ums and scratching at my cheek, I overheard a young woman wail into her cellphone: "I came here for the fall foliage. I never dreamed it would be eighty thousand degrees in October." Yeah, eighty thousand degrees and still buggy.

Posted by Jane on October 8, 2007 1:53 PM

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