Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Back in the day, many many years ago during the days of wine and roses, when life was slow and oh so mellow, when you could let your children run around outside all day without checking on them because nobody did anything wrong to people, and you could go to sleep or maybe even leave your house for hours without locking all your doors and windows -- hell, you could even leave your front door wide open with a plate of warm brownies on a chair right in plain sight of the sidewalk -- you know, back when Aunt Bea was cooking and Opie was killing birds with his slingshot.  Yeh, back then.  Remember it? 

Well, back then, my niece, Stephanie, was nice and sweet, and gentle and peaceful and wore her hair in a Dorothy Hamill wedge cut and never used any cuss words.  I know, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and it's very hard to remember those days gone by, before Stephanie became the charming, cute and adorable toilet mouth we know and love today.

Anyway, way down yonder in the land of cotton, way back when, she was so elegant, gentile and delicate -- and naive -- that she could not bring herself to soil her lily white lips with the ugly, harsh and common phrase we know now as "pubic hair."  Those base words were too much for her to stand, too much for her to utter, too sinful for her to even consider saying.  Instead of pubic hair, Stephanie always said -- after a pause and a glance from left to right, checking to see if God or Yiayia was around -- "bathroom hair."

How brilliant!  What a great phrase.  The minute she said it, I knew it was the perfect white person phrase, used when you were at the country club enjoying a gin and tonic or at a Philoptochos meeting pretending to have a pot and a window to throw it out of.

Immediately when I first heard her say that, I was pissed off because I had not thought of bathroom hair first.  How could this little slip of a thing, 8 years my junior, a darling little niece who was more of a sister to me than a niece, have thought up this great phrase before me???  I was supposed to be the smart one and, if I didn't have THAT, then what was MY purpose in the family?  But this brief and fleeting self doubt left as quickly as it arrived when Stephanie confided in me that she did not know what manual labor was -- she asked me if it was the name of the president of Mexico.

Whew!  My self confidence dodged a bullet on that one.

When I hear bathroom hair now, it reminds me of the time that my mother confided in me that Thela had confided in her -- which my mother immediately told me -- oh these dastardly Greeks -- that all of Thela's pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair was gone.  GONE?  Not going, going, going, but all done gone!  Oh my.  Where had it gone -- shopping?  Was it somewhere between the back door and her car?  Or, God forbid, was it somewhere at our house?  She did come over quite a bit.

Wherever it went, it was, well, disconcerting to say the least.  One doesn't often hear that one's aunt has lost all her pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair and, believe me, when one does, one feels like someone has shoved hot iron pokers into one's eyes.  Of course, I played it cool and responded "that devil, Uncle Andy."  Mom laughed so hard that she cried and, when she realized that she was crying, she laughed some more.  Then, she laughed even harder and then peed a little bit.  She laughed until she couldn't breath and then I got in trouble for saying it.  But not until she had a good belly laugh over the thought.  For God's sake, Thela and Uncle Andy slept in separate beds, twin beds -- like Wally and Beaver -- as long as I had known them!  How could we go from that to this?  The only way to get over this little rip in my Greek family's cosmic universe was to forget about my aunt's pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair until I was about 50 when I remembered it quite accidentally.

Looking through some old cardboard boxes for my dignity one day, I found a weathered picture of Thela in crisp white pedal pushers and a sleeveless white shirt.  She was one white Greek woman except for her mink stole which was pulled fetchingly around her shoulders in the 100 degree heat of a St. Louis summer.  Of course.  Her hair -- the hair on her head not her pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair -- was dyed the exact same color as the mink stole.  I guess it was cheaper to do it that way because she could buy it in bulk.  Anyway, it must have been really really sunny out because Thela was squinting and there was a bright glint on everything in the picture.  The sun was bright, that sort of sunny day that is bone white and everything is shiny.  It was good to see Thela -- she'd been dead for over 20 years at that point -- and I had spent so many happy hours, days, weeks and months over at her house.  She was a lot like my mother -- which seems right since they were sisters -- only my mother was nice.  Anyway, suffice it to say that I have many many good memories of Thela and her taking care of me like I was one of her own.  So, I treasured the picture, looked at it carefully, pouring over every detail of her, from the tip of her mink stole-colored hair, to her bright alert eyes, to the batwings on the bottom of her forearms and, finally, to her camel toe.  YES HER CAMEL TOE!  OMG she had a camel toe long before I even knew what a camel toe was!  I bet I didn't even know what a camel was at that point in my young life!  

Once I saw it, I could not take my eyes off it -- Thela's camel toe -- big as day and looking painful.  I tried to look at her bright alert eyes but MY eyes always took a detour straight south.  I put the photograph down and walked across the room but, damn, wherever I went, that camel toe just seemed to keep following me around the room.  And, when I stared at it more carefully -- which was about all I could do at this point -- the sun was so bright that you could see the outline of her granny panties in her crisp white pedal pushers.

And that's when it hit me.  I remembered that she had no pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair.

I snickered.  I laughed out loud.  I remembered my mom laughing, crying, peeing and laughing some more.  I remembered getting into trouble for talking about my aunt's, her sister's, pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair, and I myself -- in great family tradition -- laughed so hard that I cried, laughed some more and then peed a little myself.  Hey, like mother like son.

It was a beautiful moment in time.

You ever have one of those moments when you remember your childhood?  Some moment that stands out so clearly and reminds you that once, long ago, before you had too much hair and got smelly and old, you were young and cute and wide eyed and everything in the world was new and fresh?

Well, did you?

I don't.  From my earliest memory, I was always thinking of dirty things, nasty things, vile vulgar things that made other people think there was something wrong with me and this -- my aunt's camel toe and pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair -- was no different.

Speaking of pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair -- and who isn't??? -- I had my own pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair problem this week.  I was at Jerry's office on Monday.  This is the office on Dupont Circle in Washington DC.  I always take a bottle of Kirkland brand VitaRain with me in the morning and, once I drink the whole bottle, I fill it with filtered water and drink plain water for the rest of the day.  Well, because I drink so much, I have to pee a lot -- in the privacy of my own home, I like to call myself Sir Pees-a-lot.  So, here in Jerry's DC office, I had to pee so, what else, I went to the bathroom.

Once there, I pulled my pants down and sat on the pot.  As I said in an earlier posting, I am supposed to sit down when I pee because my doctor told me not to lift anything heavy.

Anyway, there I was sitting on the pot, doing my thing.  Since I don't take my hand-held solitaire game with me to work -- I reserve that for the pot in my home -- I had nothing to do so I decided to look inside my underpants.  What a mistake that was. 

If you have never done this before, let me tell you, don't EVER do it under any circumstance.  What you find there will disgust you.  There were little bits of trash like I can only imagine the seats in a baseball stadium look like after a game.  Crumpled up paper, bits of dead skin, old newspaper, discarded Metro tickets, left-over parts of hot dog buns, the shells from half-eaten, as you  might expect, nuts and, again as you might expect, all sorts of crap were in my underpants.  There were stains there that I have never -- let me repeat -- NEVER seen the likes of before.  Grease spots, oily patches, bearnaise sauce and, yes, you guessed it, pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair.  Who the fuck should have underpants this dirty!  It made me think that we don't pay our cleaning lady enough.

But, there, amongst all the dirt and gradue, I saw something even more disturbing -- 2 little spots of blood.

Blood!  I immediately went into full hypochondriacal mode.  I pulled my underpants tight so I could see it better.  Sure enough -- blood.  Deep red, almost black on the fringes.  One big splatter like the blood had dropped from some height.  Then, off to the right, a schmear of blood, small for sure but definitely a schmear.

Clearly, I was dying.  Bladder cancer is always the worst kind although it could be testicular cancer but I'm too old to fit that profile but if it is bladder cancer I am clearly not Lance Armstrong -- why would he ever have dated that ugly bull dyke Sheryl Crow -- and I would never survive that.  If the cancer doesn't get me, then  the sheer embarassment of having people look at my nuts for hours and hours will surely do the trick.  Last time that happened, I was about 25 years old and living in Miami.  If I do happen to survive the cancer -- which I won't -- there's the embarrassment of the nut removal and the uncomfortable replacements.  What do they use anyway, golf balls?  Certainly, in my case, they will want to use golf balls, or -- better yet -- tennis balls.

Hematuria is the medical term for blood in the urine.  This can be caused by strenuous exercise -- forget that, moving on -- urinary tract infections -- but I drink lots of cranberry juice and that's really good for your peepee so that's probably not the case -- kidney stones or other sorts of kidney injuries -- mine has been pretty safe lately because I practice safe peeing as I pointed out before. 

All that's left is the cancer.

I felt around in the area where the blood would have come from.  I stood up, pulled my underpants up and pin-pointed the blood by sticking my finger pretty hard there so I would remember where on my body to look.  Of course, once I pulled my underpants down, I could not see or reach that area.  But there did not seem to be any pimples and I know for sure I couldn't get THAT area stuck in my zipper.

No, the cancer, is what it had to be.

I pulled my underpants up, put my pants and belt on.  I washed my face off.  I pulled myself together.

I went back to my office and was just about to get my affairs in order -- I'd hate to leave Jerry with my messy affairs -- when I saw an email from one of my best law school friends Diane. 

I call her the Beastmistress because she was such a slut in law school.  She wanted to have lunch with me.  That was good, right?  Yes, very good.  So good, in fact, that it made my cancer go away, I mean, go into remission. 

Until after lunch. 

When I was alone again in the office -- without my dear Beastmistress -- the cancer came back but of course there was nothing I could do about it then either.  I peed several more times that day and no blood.  I drank and peed lots that night and no blood.  In fact, I have not seen a drop of blood at all anywhere since I first had my cancer.  So maybe I'm seriously in remission or maybe Jesus simply noticed how sacred and pious I am and this was my own personal kind of stigmata.  No, think about it, there is kind of a holy trinity -- down there.  Well, to me at least!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for that one.

Anyway, I am now on the 5th day with the cancer -- or not -- and the 75th day of the rest of my life -- and there has been no more blood, thanks be to God.  But I do have to live with the fact that my underpants are a filthy cesspool of sewer shit and, of course, there's the shame of imagining my niece mouthing the words "bathroom hair," knowing that, this time, she is thinking about her own Uncle Lew's underpants while I am furiously trying to gouge my own eyes out in a vain -- but desperate -- attempt to erase from my own memory the most vile and hideous vision of all.  Like the Sirens of Anthemusa, I am drawn to -- without free will to pass by -- the grotesque and monstrous memory of my aunt's pubic, I mean, bathroom, hair, her shiny camel toe and smooth, but erstwhile mink-colored, landing patch.  Although the same Greek blood flows through me as flowed through Odysseus, I am neither as clever as he nor as convincing as he -- I mean, seriously, would you sail the Mediterranean, lash me to a pole and let me melt beeswax on your eyeballs so I could safely look at my aunt's bush?  I think not.



Oh my God what the hell is wrong with me?  Please forgive me, God.  Please forgive me, Thela.  Please forgive me, Odysseus and the rest of humanity.  I admit that I am seriously twisted and sick and vulgar and disgusting and, most of all, disrespectful.  Or, on the other hand, could it just be the brain cancer???  Either way, I just can't help myself.

Bite me, daddy, eight to the bar

As you all know, I have really good looking legs.  Even at age 52, my legs are muscular, shapely and attractive.  That is a given.

But, right now, after a vacation in Maine, my legs look like shit.  Instead of the usual firm musculature and marble statue-like masculine legs that you have grown used to staring at when I wear boom boom shorts -- which I do whenever I feel confident and am trying to get someone, oh God anyone, to look in my direction -- I have 2 bloody, pink, scabbed up stumps of mosquito saliva-filled venom bags.  Hot, huh?  I have a gash on my left ankle, brought on by one of the worst mosquito bites of the 1st half of the 21st century, that I actually have to treat with hydrogen peroxide every night before I retire for bed, lest the horrible bite turn into an infection -- antibiotic resistant no doubt -- that will cause my slow and painful death. 

My mosquito bites cover both legs, fronts and backs, sides too and are concentrated around my ankes and the spots on the back where my legs turn into my butt.  As of today, I also have bilateral bites on the back of each ear!

This, people, is a situation.

I have 2 theories on why this happens to me:

(1)  the summers in Maine are so short and cool that, when the weather heats up -- like right around July -- the mosquitos that have been hibernating at L.L. Bean and Pepperidge Farm come out of a deep deep sleep and have some serious munchies.  These blood-sucking assholes have such a short feeding season that God has allowed them to develop into a more virulent species.  Their appetite is ferocious, their fangs are long and dagger-like, their savagery so intense that they have been known to make populations abandon entire towns



                                                            make small children cry

                         and seriously deform hooved livestock.                     

My sister Jeraldine, is the same way.  Believe me, you never wanted to have your hand on the table when my mother threw her the pork chops at dinner.  Anyway, because the mosquitos in Maine can only drink blood for a short month or so, they bite everything in sight and they do it with death, wildness and destruction on their minds.  And, in July of 2011, I was the main object of their desires; and

(2) I am so sweet and my blood is so tasty and precious -- a delicacy really -- that the mosquitos seek me out and eat the fuck out of my legs, arms, ankles, wrists and various other body parts.  I can only be thankful that Mr. Happy is about the only part of my body that has yet to be bitten -- by a mosquito.

There was a time -- during the 5th grade when I was going through puberty -- that I constantly scratched my, well, you know -- my down there -- so violently and so often that Mrs. Plassmeyer asked my mother if I had a problem.  She always sidled up to my mother and laughed a sick little laugh when she asked this, like it was titillating her that she could refer to my penis without actually saying the exact word.  Pretty slick, huh?  My mom thought she was common.  But this was in fucking January, you fucking dolt, and what the fuck was my 5th grade teacher doing anyway taking a little sneaky peak of a little 11 year old boy???  Right then and there, I knew that the old fashioned crinoline petticoat underneath her blue gingham house dress was NOT moving on its own.  Shame on you, Mrs. Plassmeyer, you little hot tamale.  But, really, that was just foreshadowing of the obviousness and the power of my sweet meat and how much attention it would garner later in life.  I just wish that hungry creatures -- other than blood sucking insects -- were entranced by my legs at this point in my life.

Oh, for the days when it was simple to turn an eye or 2 just by wearing my short leopard print jump suit.

Don't you just love my bush?

Anyway, for whatever reason, mosquitos are attracted to me more than anyone else I know.  In a world where very few bad things happen to me -- or have ever happened to me -- thank God -- the fucking mosquitos and their damn bites have just not gotten with the program of treating me like the little BOY KING I am.  I guess my mother never got around to giving them "what for."  If she were alive today, trust me, she would be shaking the shit out of those nasty ass mosquitos.

But, for the past 20 years at least, I have suffered through every summer, wearing long pants, manty hose up to my knees, long sleeve shirts buttoned tight at the neck and cuffs -- all when it is 100 degrees -- just to try and avoid mosquito bites.  I don't even wear sandals because they bite my feet between the leather straps.  Jerry used to do that too when we were first together.  I have tried Deep Woods Off spray, Citronella candles and sprays, DEET, Skin So Soft, garlic and wolfbane, dorky clip-on appliances with insecticide spread by little battery operated fans -- and this was just last week in Maine -- all with no success.  My legs are covered with scars and discolorations from the series of mosquito bites I have suffered through.

Of course, it's not really the bite -- it's the following 2 weeks of agony.  An intense itching that is worse than death itself.  Yes, I get the usual red welts that everyone gets but it is much more than that for me.  It is suffering, torment and torture with no equal.  There are times when I plead with God to spontaneously amputate my itching limbs.  I can only liken the itch to a crack addicts call to duty.  Please don't misunderstand -- I know that a mosquito bite is not the addiction that crack or heroin is -- but, to me, this is as close as it gets.  You see, I have never been much of a druggie.

Back when I was a junior at the Univerity of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1979, I was tired of being a goodie goodie.  My boy scout status was bumming me out.  I was tired of seeing all my friends having fun and tripping out on pot, cocaine and worse.  I wanted some of the action.  I decided then and there to do something about it.

Well, being very goal oriented, I devised a plan.  I wanted to start my life as an addict in the safety of my home in Belleville, not in my dorm room or some abandoned crack house, because I am no dummy.  I knew that if you passed out in a crack house, people stole your things, put funny hats on you and put your hands in bowls of hot water to see you pee.  That was NOT going to happen to Lew James Hages.  Oh no!  Plus, I knew that, if I was in Belleville, I could call the Memorial Hospital ambulance if I needed it quickly -- I trusted the good old hometown hospital to break my evil addiction almost before it started.

My parents were going to Chicago for cousin Calliope's funeral.  I was sorry I could not go because at her sister Melina's funeral, about 4 years earlier, her children had lifted the bottom lid of of the casket -- the part over her legs -- and kissed her feet as a sign of their love and grief.  I shit you not.  My family has talked about this display -- which can only be termed "intense" -- for more than 35 years.  I had never seen such weird shit in my life and, to be honest, I toyed with delaying my dance with drugs just to see if Calliope's children would  kiss her dead feet too.  Because of the big bunion on her left foot, I thought that this funeral could really be something to remember.

But, temptation being what it was back then in 1979, I decided to go to Belleville and start my life as a junkie instead of seeing George, Nick and Taso kiss their mother's bunion.

So, I went home.  Nobody was there which was unusual -- and this of course is why I had selected this particular weekend.  Back in the day, 229 Sunset Drive was always open like a 24 hour drive-thru at Checkers -- my mother didn't work or drive, my nieces were living there, my sisters were there most of the time and various and sundry family and friends were always stopping by to eat, talk, pick vegetables with my mother or just to gossip.  There were always people and lots of action at that house.  Of course, this particular weekend, everyone had gone to Chicago to see if Calliope's butt-ugly bunion would get kissed by 3 good looking guys.  So, bottom line, I was alone in the Hages castle.

I got home and immediately went to thinking.  How will I get wasted?  What will I take? Where will I get my juice?  How can a Thermos keep things both hot and cold?  But, perhaps I digress.

I didn't know any pushers at the time so that was out.  I was not going to drive down to East St. Louis to buy something from the street because that seemed more dangerous than necessary.  I have always been risk averse, you see.  So, I decided that there must be something in the bathroom closet. Our house had one of those big, tall bathroom closets that was lined with wooden shelves for all sorts of medical and enema-related treatments.  There were aspirin, laxatives, pain killers, laxatives, soapy solution bottles in my mom's blue enema bucket on the closet floor, toothpicks, laxatives, bags of cotton balls, laxatives, boxes of things I had never ever looked at called Kotex -- hey, I was told not to look, so I didn't -- old used eye droppers and boxes darkened and ragged with age.  Oh yeh, and laxatives.  This was one kick ass bathroom closet.  Proof that the Hages family could crap on command if the situation required.

But then I saw it -- Doan's Pills.  OMG, it was so obvious.  Why hadn't I thought of it before?  Yeh, sure, they were for back pain but they were the strongest muscle relaxers, I had heard my father say.  Muscle relaxers.  Wasn't that just old person speak for "downers?"  I thought it had to be and I really didn't care if I did an upper or a downer or a sideways.  I just wanted to be bad like those guys at the parties who didn't wear belts and had dirty fingernails.

So, I grabbed the box of Doan's Pills and went down to the kitchen, command central for our family.  I put my drugs in the middle of the kitchen table and sat in front of the box, reading the instructions.  Take 2 for relief of lower back pain.  Ha ha ha ha, I thought to myself.  I wonder if Old Mr. Doan would ever have imagined a theater major from U of I taking his nifty little downers to get high and, most probably, masturbate to a Joni Mitchell album using a warm wash cloth for stimulation.  I figured that such mis-use had never ever been contemplated by him or anyone else except for me.  Can you imagine the disclaimer -- "Do not take before genital stimulation."

I opened the fridge and got out a 2 liter bottle of Coke -- there were always three or four 2 liter bottles of soda there for Stephanie, Stacey and Heather.  This time, however, the drinker would be much more hip and sinister.  I nodded my approval.

I unscrewed the Doan's Pill bottle and got 4 -- oh yes, 4!  Can you believe how wild, decadent and depraved I had become? I was becoming a rebel.  And I swished them down, a smile on my face.  I tell you, I could immediately hear Joni Mitchell crooning "Big Yellow Taxi."  I knew I was on my way to my first high, I was getting totally stoned.  I could see my fingernails getting slightly soiled already.

But then a horrible thought crossed my mind and the funkadelic smile was immediately wiped off my junkie face.  Here I was, taking pills for back pain and I didn't have a back pain at all -- not a throb, not a dull ache, not even a twinge.  In fact, I had never had a back pain in my life.  Oh my God, would the pills know that?  Instead of turning me into a happy junkie without a job but always loaded with cash from selling my pills of pleasure to other unsuspecting Liberal Arts majors, would I instead turn into a quadriplegic?  I had heard that, sometimes, people who used drugs took too much, or the drugs were laced with bad things like talcum powder or cinnamon, and instead of getting high, the blood and oxygen flow was cut off to their heads and they became quadriplegics.  I understand that this is what is known, in the drug counter-culture, as a buzz kill.  Joni Mitchell was the furthest thing from my mind right now.

I immediately was stunned by my stupidity.  How could I have done something like this?  How could I be such an idiot?  I did not want to take drugs, I did not want to be a pusher, I did not want to have dirty fingernails and I definitely did NOT want to have a "fro" or wear black Hawaiian wedding shirts with a big gold necklace.  I had seen pictures of pushers in Time magazine and they always looked like that.  Had to be the drugs, I thought.

I also thought I might be dying.  I was hyperventilating.  I knew for sure that I took 4 Doan's Pills when the directions said to take only 2.  What a stupid fuck I was. I was overdosing because I doubled the Doan's Pill directions -- my life was slipping away quickly.  There goes my 4.0, my citizenship award,  my Boy of the Month Award and, if I thought about it very hard, I guess my life too.  My parents would come home, find me sprawled on the kitchen floor with the open bottle of Doan's Pills clutched in my cold hands and they would know.  They would know that their only son, the apple of their eyes, had become a junkie and a druggie and had killed himself by overdosing.  OD'ing.  On Doan's Pills.

I could not let this happen.  I had to use what was left of my promising young life to fix myself.

Thinking quickly, I looked on the Doan's Pills box.  Maybe there was some sort of written instruction if you overdosed. 

There wasn't.

But I was not gone yet.  I had volunteered for the Belleville Crisis Intervention Hotline for extra credit when I was in high school and I just so happend to know that Illinois had a poison prevention center and it had a poison prevention 800 number to call if your little child had gotten into the Drano or sniffed too much bleach.  I ran upstairs to my bedroom -- in full panic mode now -- and got my old binder for the Hotline.  There, on page 27, was Illinois' poison prevention 800 number.  I ran to the phone and then stopped.  I had to do this right.  I had to be cool and calm so as not to raise much suspicion because, after all, I had taken the Doan's Pills to become high and I was sure that was illegal.  I did not want to get arrested for taking drugs -- that would be worse than being dead and my parents would have killed me so really what's the fucking difference!

So, I took a deep breath, lowered my voice so I would sound old -- say 27 or so -- and dialed the 800 number.  When the quiet, poised voice answered and said "Illinois Poison Prevention Center" I blurted out -- in as low a voice as possible -- "my son has just taken 4 Doan's Pills and he doesn't even have a backache!"

There was a long pause.  All I heard was the quiet hum of background noise at the Illinois Poison Prevention Center -- and a cough or was it a snicker.

"Can I put you on hold for a minute please?"

"Sure thing" I said forgetting to use my big low voice.  "SURE THING" I repeated, VERY low this time.

After a minute of silence she returned.  "I think you'll be all right.  There is no need to worry."

Oh Thank God.  My parents would not find my cold, stiff body lying on the kitchen linoleum -- Congoleum, I think, strangely stamped to look like red Spanish tile -- with the Doan's Pills splayed out over my silent chest, a sad testament to my drug-induced depravity. I would not get arrested.  And, best of all, I would not be a quadriplegic either.  I was wide awake the rest of the night -- and the next.  But my back sure felt fabulous.

There are approximately 2700 species of mosquitos in the world -- over 170 in the US alone.  One of the most common mosquitos in North America is the "aedes albopictus" -- also known as the Asian tiger mosquito.  It is native to the continent of Asia and was most likely brought to the US through shipments of scrap tires from northern Asia.

Say what, geisha girl?  Are you kidding me?  Why the fuck are we importing Asian mosquitos?  Can't we make anything on our own anymore?  We even have to get our mosquitos from Asia?  It's bad enough that we get our dishware, our motorcycles, computers and toenail clippers, from Asia?  It just ain't right.  What next -- will be importing our teeth whiteners and trash bags from China too?  Why can't Obama do something about that?  Oh yeh, I forgot.  He can't do anything about ANYTHING.

Oops.  Perhaps I digress again.

Back to mosquitos.

I know what you're wondering -- Hey Lew, why are you ranting on and on about something that's smaller than the average pistachio nut and what the fuck do you know about mosquitos?

Need I remind you that I am a lawyer?  Today might be the 69th day of the rest of my life and comedy central is quickly receding into past for me, but I sure as hell remember blood sucking insects, hard spiny exoskeletons and long slender sucking mouthparts.  I may not be a practicing lawyer anymore but I will never forget the tools of my trade.  Suffice it to say that I am a professional at this.  As a recovering corporate lawyer, I know a little bit about piercing skin and sucking blood.

Mosquito bites -- mine as well as everyone else's -- are caused only by the female mosquitos.  This is a scientific fact as solid as if they had interviewed everyone in the legal department.  Yes, that's right.  Only female mosquitos bite people and feast on the blood.  This should not really be a surprise to anyone and, believe me, I know this from 20 years of first hand experience.

Real mosquitos -- female mosquitos -- pierce your skin with their mouths and suck your blood.  They inject saliva into your body.  Gross.  I haven't let anyone do that to me since the late 70's and here is the reason why -- their saliva contains proteins and enzymes, basically anti-coagulants, that prevent your blood from clotting -- leave the lawyer jokes to me, please -- and cause the itching and irritation at the bite.  Those mosquitos that don't have anti-coagulants are forced to attend this summer course called "blood sucking, irritation and ambulance chasing." Those who are not able to pass this course . . . well, to be honest, all lawyers pass this course so there is no data on the failure rate.  Dirty little secret 101.

After a mosquito bites you, your immune system recognizes that some nasty shit is going on and it releases histamines to the bite site to clean that crap up.  That's a good thing but it also causes the redness, the swelling and the itching.  The same thing happens when I see my old work phone number appear on my caller ID.

It has been a week or so since the worst of the mosquito bites and I thought it was safe to go back outside.  Jerry and I rode our bikes to one of our favorite restaurants -- Dupont Italian Kitchen on the corner of 17th and R Streets.  The night was beautiful -- clear sky and no humidity.  The neighborhood was buzzing with people out enjoying the rare good weather in DC during mid-July. 

We enjoyed a great meal.  Jerry had a Chicken Cobb Salad with some of the best dressing in the universe and I had fettucine with meat sauce.  I ate all the bread too because I am carb loading.  For what, though, I know not.

Anyway, we are on our bikes, on our way home, and I have to stop to rearrange myself because my nuts are not in the right place. Hey, that's an important part of any bike ride.

So, as I was adjusting my nuts for the ride home and looked down at my leg -- many others were looking too -- and, there it was, looking up at me with a titillated smile on her face -- one more god damn mosquito.  A girl of course -- feasting on my thick muscular leg and, if truth be told, probably looking up my boom boom shorts.  I stopped rolling in the garden hose and tried to smack that bitch to death.  But, alas, she had already pierced my skin with her stinking proboscis, injected me with her fucking saliva and her god damn enzymes and her proteins and her anti-coagulants and was feasting on the sweet nectar of my 100% Greek blood.  Motherfucker.  This little feathery wispy mosquito doesn't give a shit that nothing bad ever happens to me, doesn't give a shit that I already am scarred and disfigured from prior mosquito bites and doesn't even give a shit that I am handling my own sausage and eggs -- and enjoying it -- at the intersection of 16th and P Streets.  She just wants her blood like all the other lawyers in town.  Motherfucker.

And in one brief moment, it all becomes clear to me.  These mosquitos are just metaphors for my life.  Only the women feed.  Only the blood suckers become lawyers.  And only those who wear boom boom shorts on a hot but clear July night handle their breakfast in public after a good Italian dinner.  Why didn't I learn this when I was younger?