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?