Scratching the itch

Here's the thing: mosquitoes love me. 

Because they love me, they find me. And when they find me, they find me tasty.

The moment I step outside during any month of the year in which mosquitoes are alive and kicking, I will end up with itchy welts on my arms and legs.

If I am in the pool, they will bite my face and shoulders. I'm like catnip to the little suckers.

In South Carolina, the hungry-mosquito months are actually most months.

It's not that we have a mosquito problem; honestly you almost never see one. They completely ignore TG and several other members of our family.

But if there is a single skeeter about, it will home in on me like a heat-guided missile and have a nibble or two or ten before I can say aarrrrrrrghhhh.

They don't die until the first frost -- sometimes that's December -- and a whole new crop shows up with the pollen in March.

We used to have a citronella candle but it melted into a useless blob. And yes; I know about Skin So Soft. And yes; it really does work. Skeeters avoid those coated with it.

Audrey was told early this summer that spraying yourself liberally with Body Fantasies Vanilla -- only Vanilla -- will keep the buzzy-bitey nuisances away too.

We bought some and the spray bottle hangs out on the poolside table -- along with the floaties and the goggles and the tubes of sun scream and Dagny's cloth hat full of acorns she has collected -- where the liquid gets pretty hot (maybe even boils from time to time) and, over the summer, has turned too sweet.

Almost unbearably so. It smells like a disgusting combination of rubbing alcohol and burnt sugar. But I have to grudgingly admit that it works pretty well too.

Dagny -- for whom mosquitoes have an affinity almost as strong as their OTT attraction to me -- begins clamoring the moment her mother starts changing her into her swimsuit:

I don't need the spray, Mama. I don't need the spray.

She hates both the vanilla spray and the ordeal of having it applied to her face and chest and back and legs and arms and you know the drill.

Plus, let's face it: once in the pool, that stuff is washed right off. A treacly vanilla haze hung palpably over our pool throughout June and July.

There's a freestanding Avon store about six miles from my house. Audrey went over there in early August for eye liner and snagged me some Skin So Soft Original Gelled Body Oil for six bucks.

Which is a somewhat simpler application of the famously fragrant mosquito repellent, because it's thicker, but I must say it leaves the skin feeling sticky. Tacky to the touch.

It's always something; am I right?

So, do you see those metal rocking chairs? The ones I switched out from my long-but-narrow front veranda when I got my new bistro set?

I won't be sitting there much anymore until after Thanksgiving.

That is, unless I slather on the Skin So Soft and commit to being sticky.

Not likely. But we shall see.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday :: Happy Weekend

Comments

[Mari]

Mosquitos love me too. It's not reciprocated! Poor Dagny - it's even worse for kids I think!
Why do you suppose God created mosquitoes?

[Jennifer]

@Mari ... to keep me humble. xoxo

[Cheryl]

Mosquitoes have been scarce around here. I have never seen a one in the years we have lived here until this year. I walked across the street to talk with my neighbor one evening and while we were standing under the weeping cherry they were buzzing all about me. I headed for home. I think they like dark and damp areas. So, I have turned my birdbaths upside down to discourage them from hanging around. They spray our streets every year. I am glad for that. We may die from it, but at least we will not be scratching. Skin So Soft comes other ways like a splash on, I think.

[Jennifer]

@Cheryl ... they don't spray our streets but I don't know why. I'd love it if I never got a mosquito bite again. The splash on is an oil and it just seems too oily to me. I just want to be left alone by all bugs, haaahaha xoxo

[Barb]

My d-i-l is also a mosquito magnet. We barely have them in the mountains (except at swampy places), but they travel miles to bite her. She swells up terribly. I hate the scent of Skin So Soft...

[Jennifer]

@Barb ... I'm not all that crazy about that scent either and I don't like applying it to my already-so-soft skin in any form, but I must grudgingly admit that it works. I was standing on my front porch yesterday in the early evening, chatting to a friend who had dropped by and got a bite on my hand that swelled to the size of a dime. So anNOYing! xoxo