2 weekends ago I was attacked by about 6 mosquitoes. It happened at a cookout at the Meadowbrook swim club in Mt. Washington.
I'd never been there, before. It was neat to see the competition-sized pool and swim lanes. (I'm afraid I'm not very active in the water, but I do appreciate aquatic activities.) It's the home of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, which has produced a number of champion swimmers over the years. It was a little surprising to note that such the facilities seemed a little dreary or run-down. (Maybe they would've seemed less so, if the day had been sunny.)
In any event, I ate so much that I didn't feel up to jumping into the pool. (I had brought along a pair of swim trunks.) As I stuffed myself, I noticed that I was attracting attention from mosquitoes and wasps.
I managed to squish one mosquito that was gorging on a vein near my wrist. It had hit the motherlode, and wasn't about to do a hit and run. So I had a chance to crush it in flagrante delicto.
The wasps didn't bother me too much, until I tried a s'more that a friend had made. Wasps can smell that sweetness in the air, so the traces of marshmallow on my lips and fingertips were so alluring. For some reason, I didn't let their swarming on me freak me out. (I was probably too tired.)
Unfortunately, a friend of mine had a very painful encounter with the critters, last week. He was clearing some stuff (brush? trash?) in his backyard, and disturbed some wasps. They swarmed over his head and stung him repeatedly. They also stung his fingers and arms as he swatted at them.
He ran into his house to try to escape, and sprayed himself with bug-killing spray to get rid of the few wasps that were still clinging and stinging. Took a massive dose of antihistamine and some hydrazine (hydrazil?). Looked for some meat tenderizer, but couldn't find it. Took a shower, to wash off the poisonous chemical that he'd sprayed himself with. And began taking tablets of analgesics, alternating between aspirin, ibuprofen, acetamine, etc.
It took about 2 or 3 days for the pain to die down, he said.
(That reminds me that it took a couple days for the itchiness from my mosquito bites to go away.)
Posted by raacluse at September 26, 2005 07:05 PM