#50 Banish the Pests
Aug 1st, 2008 by doing better
For our trip to Sweden, I came fully prepared with the latest in anti-pest technology. I had visited the camping store and discovered a wealth of insect control devices. Not only did I buy the standard highly concentrated Deet that will do God-knows-what to my unborn children, I also bought a bandana-sized cloth permeated with some chemical that mosquitoes do not love and – my favorites – wrist and ankle bands permeated with Deet that created a “halo” of protection, releasing the dry poison automatically as a result of my movements. A less powerful weapon in my arsenal was a herbal roll-on with Eucalyptus oil and other gentle substances, but I didn’t use this as much as the poisonous stuff. I spent a lot of time spraying myself, and as a result I did not get any ticks and did not get many mosquito bites until the end of the trip, when I began to grow lax in my defensive regimen. My boyfriend eschewed poison, and his only means of protection was the fly swatter, so he got a lot of bites.
Every night we argued over my most powerful weapon, a wall plug-in that released poison vapors to kill mosquitoes. It really worked. The mosquitoes dropped out of the air. But my boyfriend said he did not wish to breathe poison vapors all night. We had to compromise: I filled the room with poison for two hours before bed, and then we unplugged it.
All my devices had no effect on the large black ants which had chewed their way into the house. They were big and mean looking. One day I was down by the lake, and I flicked one into the water and watched it swim for a long time until it finally washed back onto the rocks, righted itself, and went on its way as if nothing had happened. No stopping to catch its breath, no post traumatic stress for that ant. I also saw several snakes. One day I was lying on the rocks by the lake, and I rolled over and frightened away a long black snake (not an adder, I hope) that had been emerging from the water to join me in sunning itself. It slid back into the lake and dove down out of sight. Our favorite animals (which we did not consider pests) were the frogs that came out in the rain. When we went walking at night, we had to watch our step because they were all over the place, big and fat, hopping across the roads. The forest really did not belong to us, and it was futile to think I could create a vacuum around me where I could go about my business as if I was not stepping into everybody else’s habitat.