Amy feeds the Caribbean

As a child, I was invisible to mosquitoes.  I ranged through the woods behind our house with impunity, with nary a bug bite to show for it.  My mother was the designated sacrifice for our family; she must have gotten a hundred bites for every one received by the rest of us.

Oh, I miss those days.

Many years ago, Erik and I took a road trip across Canada and the US.  Being young students, we camped most of the time.  We stopped one night in Winnipeg.  Flat, swampy Winnipeg.  As we pitched our tent, I complained continuously about the mosquitoes.  Erik told me, in essence, that he wasn't getting bitten, so kindly quiet down you maker-upper of stories.  The next morning, he was forced to admit that the hundreds of bites I had on my legs were not, in fact, a dream.  "Oh, you did get bitten!" he said with surprise.  Well, duh.

Sometime after the arrival of Stylish, I was forced to admit that I was the new sacrifice.  This was rarely an issue, as the biting bug population back home is nothing now like it was back in the day, but we would make the odd foray "up north", where mosquitoes and black flies are still a going concern.  I would spend those weeks at the cottage scratching and complaining, but it was never too bad.  I could hack it.

Then we went to Bimini.  And the no-see-ums arrived.  And I was the most delicious thing on the menu.

The family would gather in the morning to compare bites.  Everyone always felt much better about their own red welts when I showed up.  I was the new Mom, out-competing the rest fifty-to-one.  It was a dubious honor, and one I would rather forgo.

After a couple of weeks, the mosquitoes arrived to make the situation worse.

Perhaps it is a mother's role to protect her young.  Can I be selfish and say I don't wanna?  Hey, bugs!  Look at my delicious kids!  Or at least my crotchety husband. Just give me one night to myself.

We left Bimini a couple of days ago, and my first thought was, "Hooray!  Back to Florida, pollution and no more bugs!"  But what do we have at the marina here?

No-see-ums.

Aaaaahhh!