I am allergic to relaxation in cool, damp climates. Either that, or something tried to eat me alive as I slept last night.
As I reached to scratch my derriere this morning, like all delicate creatures do first thing when they wake, I felt a hard bump at the top of my left cheek. Ow, what’s this? I craned my neck around to check it out in the mirror, and lo: a big red bump the size of a dime. Oh great. Another butt pimple.
A couple of months ago, I found a hard red bump…um, slightly lower. Thinking immediately that it was cancer of the butt (of course!), I rushed to the doctor only to find out it was a butt pimple. Did you know pimples come in three sizes? Baby Bear is called a pimple; Mama Bear, a boil; while Papa Bear is an abscess. I had Mama Bear. I could not, however, bring myself to call it a boil. That just sounded way too gross to my delicate sensibilities. “Giant butt pimple” was much more feminine and refined. A few weeks of taking four giant red (how appropriate!) pills per day and Mama Bear was gone.
So this morning I figured God thinks it’s funny to torture me and has given me another giant butt pimple. (Because, you know, God doesn’t have anything else better to do and I am just that important in the grand scheme of things.) But then I found another one: I am minding my own business, brewing my first cup of tea, and I scratch an itch on my left side. Ouch! What the hell? I lift my shirt up to see a string of big red bumps going up my side and onto my back. Further exploration reveals even more. Holy crap!
My normal reaction would be to panic because I have obviously been bitten by something poisonous. Anaphylactic shock is surely imminent. Lucky for me, however, this is not the first time I have awakened with creepy bug bites. The last time was also at a humid, waterfront location. Hm. Am I really so unlucky as to be the only one to be bitten? My friend Astrid and I are sharing a bed this trip, and she’s FINE. Maybe healthy people who eat right and run every morning aren’t as tasty as junk-foodies who get tired just watching other people exercise.
Astrid thinks everyone has been bitten but I am more sensitive, thus the only one having a reaction. Although this does not seem statistically possible to me, I cling to this theory. The alternative is that some bug or spider crawled all over me as I slept. Gross. And creepy.
On a happy note, the big ugly bumps will all be out of sight when I wear my sleeveless dress to the wedding tonight. And now I am going sailing with people I barely know. There are no bugs on boats, right?
