Over fifty years ago, when I moved from the miserable, snowy, gray cold of the North to the sunny South, I had no idea that along with the beautiful, warm days and short almost non-existent winters, would come a constant influx of bugs! The first few days that my family and I spent in the South were in a motel. To my immediate horror, the cockroaches came in giant sizes. A kindly southern gentleman at the motel front desk simply described those mammoth insects as “water-bugs,” and assured me that they would not bite. Bite? That was not my concern, but my worry was whether they would demand room and board from me.
When we finally moved into our new home, the contractor made me aware that he had sprayed for bugs and spiders as soon as the house was declared habitable. But he also advised me to contract with a reputable exterminator to keep the house and garage pest free. The little man who soon appeared at my door carrying a canister of lethal bug poison guaranteed me that his magic potion would “slow down the spiders” as they crossed the threshold, thus making it easier to step on them before they got to my “young’-uns.” Nice. What about me? Was I supposed to be the household killer standing guard at my doorway to dispatch the spiders as they advanced by the thousands into my home?
Soon after that revelation from the exterminator, my friendly next-door neighbor informed me that spreading borax around the perimeter of the cabinet under the sink would stop marauding roaches from entering the kitchen. Okay, but where would the roaches go, if they could not get into the kitchen? “Oh,” said friendly neighbor, “they will die and you will just have to clean them up.”
If that were not enough good news, my children began showing me the bright red itchy spots that covered any place their clothing was tight around their little bodies. “Red bugs,” said helpful neighbor’s husband. “Don’t worry about them. Just get some dog soap for fleas and once you have bathed the kids with it, the bug bites will clear right up.” I opted to call the pediatrician instead of the anti-flea soap, but he wasn’t much more helpful. His advice was, “Calamine lotion and wait it out.”
Next were the ticks on the dog which I found absolutely disgusting. This was over fifty years ago, so the wonderful tick-free pills and collars had not yet been invented. I refused to let the poor dog into the house in the evenings until my husband had carefully searched out any suspicious bug on the long-suffering animal.
Finally, there came the “no-see-ums,” those microscopic bugs of the warm, early evenings. My dreams of sitting on the patio as the sun slowly sank in the west were soon shattered as I was driven into the house by the bites of millions, yes millions of tiny bugs that could quickly drive me crazy. When we gave up and added a screened porch, those miserable tiny pests were able to squeeze through the mesh, dance in joy in my hair and torture me by chewing on my scalp.
I love the South. I have traded the long, cold dark winters of the North for all the beautiful days of the Southern landscape. And if I have to stay in the house to avoid the red-bugs, the ticks and the no-see-ums, I will gladly do so. Anyway, I have to stand guard at my doorway to stamp out those spiders and water-bugs before they take over my delightful, southern world.
