Sophomore summer has brought to my life a beautiful new pastime - bug bite counting. I'm from Los Angeles and although as a camp counselor I spent most of my past summers outdoors, I've never come close to accumulating the number of bite marks that I have at present count. Usually in L.A. I'd be sporting one or two bites - maybe three if it was particularly humid - but nothing reaches today's tally.
Seventeen.
Yes, cherished reader, my legs have become the new Mecca for bugs across New England. I feel as if I am the trendy spot for yuppie bug tourists.
Mom and Dad Mosquito can get away from the swamp for a couple of days, so they decide to take the kids over to Channing Cox, New Hampshire, just to sample some California blood. And they don't seem to be interested in my roommates' Georgian or Floridian legs. Their legs are still unscarred and unitchy. It's just me the spiders and mosquitoes want. Damnit, I'm special.
Although my sixth grade teacher used to tell my class, "You are unique; love yourself" - just this once, I'd like to be the same as everyone else. However, I have now come to terms with the fact that the mosquitoes think I have the most delicious blood on campus and rather than angst, I intend to focus all available energy towards deterring the bugs from my flesh.
Perhaps I should talk to the bugs. If I told them that the red welted leg look was just not in this season, maybe they'd move on to some other Californian flesh. Hell, I'd give them my Green Book if they'd use it to locate future victims. But although this would be quite amusing in the fantasy world of Courtney's mind, this solution could not be applied in real life.
Unless, of course, some Bio majors want to breed bugs that understand English or any other language that I could teach myself by watching Dartmouth cable. Then I could converse with the bugs. Or, all you psych majors could employ some Pavlovian techniques and teach the bugs of New England to keep away from my body.
Please realize, though, that this is all just another grand extension of my fantasy world.
If the bugs won't listen to reason, maybe they'll listen to my new best friend - bug spray. Ah yes, sweet bug spray. I used to tell my roommates that I wanted to put a wading pool in our common room this summer. (This plan was cruelly abandoned simply because the water would get all warm and dirty and splash all over the floor.) Now, since I've discovered the mosquito bloodbath days of summer, I have a new vision for our common room - a vat of bug spray.
Every morning before venturing outside and every night before succumbing to sleep, I want to bathe myself in the most lethal recipe of bug spray so when those mosquitoes try to sample my blood, they will discover my skin is akin to the bubonic plague - and die.
Aside from the vat o' bug death, I have observed one other remedy to the bug assaults upon legs. Pants. Yes, if your legs are completely covered with material, the lazy bugs go in search of more vulnerable nutrition.
I've observed the efficiency of this solution and still, I refuse to partake in summer pants wearing.
Honestly, what are you crazy people thinking when you put on the jeans in the morning? It's not cold out! It's not even lukewarm! Aren't you sweaty? Aren't you miserable? Aren't you hating life?
I'm friends with a few of you lunatics out there. Some of you say that you "just like to wear pants." Well, I'd like to take this opportunity to warn you summer pants wearers that you are running the risk of passing out from the heat.
Although my legs are lacerated with bug bites, I at least will not be fainting from dehydration.
I do, however, run the risk of fainting from loss of blood if a vat of bug spray is not installed in my dorm room sometime in the very near future.
