Bitten to Buggery

Something got at me this week-end.

While I was asleep on Saturday a bug or bugs have bitten my arms in several places. It's been quite a while since I've had an insect bite - the last time was when the landord's cat got infested with fleas and they hopped their way into my bedsit. It took several sprayings of flea stuff to get rid of them. Christ knows what all those chemicals in the air did to my lungs, but I was left in tatters after a few nights of them biting me so it had to be done.

It's not fleas this time - the bites are very different. I recognise them from when I was a kid. The culprit this time is mosquitoes. A mosquito injects you with its saliva while it bites, which stops the blood from coagulating and also slightly anaesthetises they bite to stop you noticing. It's because they take so much blood they have to do that.

Unfortunately this saliva is something my family has a bit of a history of reacting to - when bitten by mosi's my mum used to swell up like a balloon - and that's something I've inherited to a lesser degree. So now I've got big lumps on my arms where the bites are that itch like a right royal bastard. To make it worse, the bites are in places where they keep getting brushed by my clothes, etc, so just as they're starting to fade a bit, I'll rub them and suddenly that sets them off again.

Bloody insects.