Cursed Tongue: Humidity Bites

Posted by CursedTongue on August 18, 2007

Searing heat, spiky plants and dust storms are a few of the drawbacks to living in Arizona’s desert. But for me the advantages outweigh any trivial warts like flash floods and brush fires. I was sharply reminded of these advantages when I visited the Midwest this June. It was humid. So humid that everything smelled wet.

I didn’t even know there was a “wet” smell to be smelt, until I was in Illinois, inhaling an irritating damp odor that just wouldn’t go away. Say what you want about my sanity for loving the 110-degree dry heat over the 90-degree swelter of the Midwest, but I was seriously dying. For two whole weeks.

The other big advantage is the absence of those waifish, buzzing, black, skanky, West Nile carrying bloodsuckers. The deadly mosquito is a biological vector, an organism that transmits disease. Indiscriminately biting encephalitic filthy pigeons and unsuspecting, minding-their-own-business bloggers with weak immune systems alike.

Vectors don’t create disease; only spread it–like so much sleazy coworker coughing invisible germy slime onto the phones of others. A fall-in with the wrong mosquito could land individuals with a case of malaria, dengue fever, St. Louis encephalitis or West Nile Virus. Precisely illustrating why it’s a bad idea to share needles. God was so wrong when she created animals that don’t immediately die after stinging someone.

Speaking of mistakes that God made, this year Arizona’s monsoon season rolled in like a wad of damp paper towel. It’s been miserably humid here. More so than any other desert summer I’ve experienced. Part of the godsend of “dry” heat is that the sweat on your skin evaporates fairly quickly. Unless you’re my husband. In which case, we’ll just have to get him a portable air conditioner from the Sharper Image.

In the land where my hand-washed delicates are always dry after a few hours, the humidity is inconvenient to say the least. Yesterday, after 15 minutes of tree trimming, my arms and legs were slick with moisture. Lethal, mosquito-attracting moisture.

At this moment, I have no less than a dozen mosquito bites. It doesn’t sound like much, but in the desert, on someone that doesn’t spend time outdoors unless it’s absolutely necessary (and even then I avoid it), it’s more than my fair share. I would have thought the stench of my sun block, which, if it has a name must be “Drunken, Spoiled Spring Break Coed Whore,” would mask the complex fruity bouquet of my blood.

I hear from friends in the Midwest that the mosquitoes aren’t so bad there this year. The anorexic insects must have heard about the fabulous golf resorts and the abundance of exposed, unsuspecting flesh.

Sure, some locals wear flip-flops and short shorts in the Midwest, but it’s part of the summer dress code here. Pretty much everyone living in the Phoenix area goes out with bare legs and arms and strappy footwear. Rare is the socks and sandals scenario. Sadly, in the Midwest it remains an unchecked crime of fashion. Even if it does protect ankles from blotchy red mosquito bites, that doesn’t make it right.

Those little buzzing bothersome buggies will be in for a shock when the temperatures drop to 80-degrees and the jeans come out. Meanwhile, I’ve broken out the DEET with disappointing results. I’m hoping that if I refrain from installing sneeze guards, the Mosquito Board of Health will shut down the Cursed Tongue Buffet.

- Sarah Letnes

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