Illustration by Jan A. Igoe
As much as we adore our warm, sunny Carolina days, they come at a dreadful price that no one wants to pay. That price is bugs. A full-scale invasion of flying, creeping, jumping, slithering, tree-dangling, stinging, squishy, bloodsucking bugs.
Our season kicks off with sand fleas, aka the infamous no-see-ums. You might not see them, but you do feel-um, because the mini vampires bite and treat themselves to a blood buffet. When there’s no breeze, they go right for your scalp, which seems to be a delicacy. You’ll know it’s no-see-um season when people you’d swear were sane start running circles and relentlessly smacking themselves in the head.
Even brave, fearless Marines may claim the worst part of bootcamp at Parris Island, besides screaming drill instructors, is resisting the urge to swat the no-see-ums that never stop biting. During training, swatting is forbidden.
Then there’s the mole cricket, a much larger flying pest. Even as bugs go, this one is particularly homely. More than 1-inch long, it’s got antennae on both ends, flapping wings, powerful front claws and legs sprouting everywhere else. Plus, they’re grouchy.
I used to play tennis at night whenever the mole crickets gave me permission. Some were content to observe, but others came to play doubles. Attracted to the lights, they would rain down on the tennis courts, landing with a juicy thud. If you dared to run down a ball through the mole cricket minefield, you’d end up picking bug mash out of your Nikes until Labor Day.
I tried flicking them off the court with my racket but underestimated those claws. One night, a particularly burly mole cricket—possibly their leader—deliberately blocked my path, daring me to get past it. To be honest, I’ve run screaming from lesser bugs, but this time I was armed.
Gingerly poking the obstinate thing with my racket, I was about to flick it into orbit when it grabbed my racket and wouldn’t let go. After a 10-minute tug-of-war, the bug emerged victorious. I surrendered my Dunlop and gave up night tennis, but the mole cricket may still be playing. It has a really nice racket.
Besides the poisonous spiders, beetles, giant wasps and ubiquitous roaches we’re used to, there’s a new player: the invasive hammerhead worm. Yes, like the shark. (Let’s not get too scientific here. In my book, worms are bugs.) And this one is harder to kill than Steven Seagal.
Everything about this worm is terrifying. It’s a cannibal. It’s poisonous. It’s a hermaphrodite, so it can reproduce with no romance required. If you chop it into 15 pieces, you’ll have 15 worms in no time. They’re virtually immortal.
The best way to kill them is two days in the freezer (definitely not mine) while dissolving them in grain vinegar, boric acid or pesticide. Gross.
Some of my friends don’t fear anything but spiders. Believe it or not, we have an official state spider: the wolf spider. It’s large, fast, and when they bite, it hurts. When Suzette found a wolf spider running around her house, she sucked it up in her vacuum but didn’t want to risk its escape. So she kept the vacuum running for the next 7 hours until her husband came home and performed a definitive autopsy. Yep. Definitely dead.
So be careful. Stock up on mosquito netting, neurotoxin-proof gloves, hatchets and bug repellant. As every South Carolina resident knows, it’s a jungle out there. But we don’t have to tell the tourists.
Most days, Jan A. Igoe would rather face a coyote or a bear than a bug. Any bug. It’s not exactly the “home of the brave,” but you can join us at HumorMe@SCLiving.coop anytime. It’s bug-free.