Bugs Bites, Bug Splats, and Backtracking

How I got myself out of some itches and glitches and found my way back to my phone and my home.

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Not too long ago I had a bad poison ivy rash. It took about two days to develop and four weeks to resolve. Then a few days after the end I noticed an itch behind my right knee and another inside my left elbow. GAH—WHAT NOW?! I thought. A third spot soon appeared on the side of my neck.

Then I remembered that I had been walking around in the yard the day before with my yard man Landon. We were taking stock of some azalea bushes and other plants that needed to be trimmed or removed because they were either dying or dead from lack of sun. Two 100-foot pin oak trees, a magnolia tree, and some towering taxus create a lot of shade in some areas of my yard.

As I considered my new itchy spots I realized that some sort of biting insects must have helped themselves to me as Landon and I nosed around the yard seeing what’s what. Whenever Landon and I do this I get a little mesmerized as he ticks off the names of everything.

Oak hydrangea. Magnolia starlota. Velvet boxwood. Little Henry itea. Domestica Nandina. Lilly of the valley. Viburnum. It’s the word nerd in me. I can’t help it. But Landon is a plant nerd. He can’t help it. We are a good match this way.

Perhaps if Landon’s horticultural recitation had not so enchanted me I may have noticed that I had become insect fodder but I have a feeling that whatever bit me is not only stealthy but too small to easily detect and destroy before biting. The bugs probably weren’t the big, visible type you often see swarming mid-afternoon on days so hot and humid that you feel certain you must have flames shooting off you when you come back inside and the air conditioning shocks like a polar plunge.

Each of the bites was a red, knotty welt with a ragged edge. They were not attractive. I was sensitive to this aspect because the inflammation from my poison ivy rash was so pronounced. But they itched nothing like the rash. They also did not take up near the same amount of dermatological real estate. The rash covered about 60 percent of my body—hands, arms, legs, torso, face.

The bites reminded me of an insect quiz I came across in the paper the morning of Landon’s visit. The quiz concerned identifying windshield bug goo. Here’s the link if you want to give it a go.

What’s That Splatter on Your Windshield?

I am about as good at identifying bug guts as I am at identifying plants—not very. I scored two out of five. But it was interesting learning what the streaks of glop and gunk may indicate. Flying ants, for example, leave a white, watery smear. Cicada remains usually include a recognizable body part such as the head. Still, I missed it.

Retracing my steps to demystify my new itchy spots was not my only instance of recent backtracking. The other morning on my way to the day shelter for homeless men where I volunteer a few days a week I realized when I was half-way there that I did not have my phone with me.

I remembered having my phone with me when I left the house. I remembered having it with me when I stopped by the grocery on my way to the shelter. Or—at least I thought I remembered.

Maybe you have found yourself in a similar situation, perhaps not one that involves your phone but one where your memory and reality are no longer reconciled. It is not a fun place to be. Is this incipient dementia? Or just routine, benign forgetfulness? Or some disconcerting twilight zone between the two?

A phone that’s gone astray quickly brings up other, more immediate feelings—panic about staying in touch with people, frustration with the inconvenience and expense of replacement, and so on. Those feelings darken the initial response. I experienced all of them in probably less than 30 seconds.

When I realized that I did not have my phone with me I continued on to the shelter. I wanted to let staff know that I’d lost my phone and wanted to backtrack to see if I could find it. Of course I thought of calling the shelter—until I realized that was not possible because I did not have my phone. Yes, I lament how my phone has become something like another appendage. Or brain.

I returned to the grocery. I went over my path through the store. I asked the manager and my cashier if anyone had turned in a phone. No. No. I went back home. No phone there. I returned to the shelter. I decided I would just go ahead and do my shift and then deal with getting a new phone the rest of the day. If I needed to text or email someone in the meantime I could do that using my laptop.

When I arrived back at the shelter it occurred to me to look under the driver’s seat of my car. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. But I didn’t. I had forgotten to follow the first rule of finding things—to look for whatever you are seeking where you least expect it to be.

And there it was—my phone, under the driver’s seat of my car, flat on its face, splat, not unlike a bug on a windshield perhaps but, thank goodness, all in one piece. As best I can figure my phone must have slipped from the outside pocket of the small cross-body bag I wear to carry my wallet and phone when I leaned over to put my groceries in the car. Now I zip that pocket when I put my phone in it.

It’s true that I experienced all those nasty feelings mentioned earlier when I realized that I did not have my phone with me as expected. But I had also started to calm myself by crafting a kind of decision tree and interim back-up plan for dealing with the situation—revisit my steps over the last half hour, communicate using my laptop.

Thinking of all this brought to my mind the oak trees in my yard and their massive canopies. The giant limbs of those canopies branch off into countless smaller limbs. I imagine their root systems are just as extensive and intricate and maybe even more so. I was glad not to need anything nearly as elaborate.

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