The first time I went camping with the man who would eventually be known as My Husband, he was much amused to find that I was bringing a tent. We were driving from Seattle to meet my parents in Rocky Mountain National Park, he for the massively important first time, and while I hadn't been in that park before, I knew perfectly well about who really rules the rugged ranges, and the furry creatures I was thinking of were not unshaven rangers; along with extreme amounts of body hair, these creatures sported fangs and claws and sometimes very large and pointy antlers. My parents were bringing a tent, too. We native Midwesterners are a practical lot. My future husband, in case you hadn't guessed, was a Californian, flippant and irreverent by birthright and nature. Yep. As my uncle put it when he heard I was engaged to someone from San Francisco, "Oh. A granola and nuts kind of fellow..if he's really a fellow... lots of fruits out that way, I hear!" (Guffaw, guffaw, the stage directions would instruct here.) My family has more than its fair share of asses and equally obnoxious altruists, I must admit, a rather typical American family in this respect. Along with population groups like cannibal sandwich eaters and vegans, these are just part of our national diversity, I guess.
Some years later, circumstances found my By-Then Husband and I preparing for a camping trip in Wisconsin with our miniature daughter. He called up my parents and asked to borrow their tent. Apparently, my pup tent was no longer adequate. The Man wanted in to the tent it seems. I was gentle as I could manage in my mockery of his lost bravery, and I do believe I refrained from actually calling him a coward, but I'm reasonably sure I may have pointed out that there were not only no mountain lions in Wisconsin (at that time), but no wolves (at that time) and not even any elk (just some deer who didn't even have chronic wasting disease yet) and a handful of doddering and largely harmless black bears. He was nonplussed, utterly. He had only one word to hiss in response, and it was sufficient really, especially with the hiss: "Mussssskitoesssssss!"
It's July. Summer's here, just in time for the fireworks. Just in time for all that lovely, luscious bare skin of the picnicking inebriates, their response time slowed just enough to allow each mosquito landing to produce a hemophiliac feast. We had a very cool, wet spring, which we thought was its own penance, and now we are paying the real price, the blood price.
Dear Russ, I know you're not in government any more, but you are still working for the best interests of the good people of your home state. I know you are convinced that what most needs to be addressed right now is the influence of corporate money on our elections and our elected officials, including not least of all our no longer impartial judiciary, but I would focus a lot better on truly important issues like these if I didn't have to contend with all these damned insects here in Wisconsin. Between the spiders who threaten to web in my entire front porch every night and the mosquitoes who are swarming off the lake behind my house and the nasty looking flyers that must be the Darth Vaders of the wasp world who are torturing the blossoms of my flower garden in some sort of unholy alliance with the innocent looking Asian beetles who are eating up the plants's leaves, well, I may not leave my house until October. Will I miss any crucial elections?
Turns out my Then Husband was right about one thing: It's not the big critters that should give one concern. Eventually, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the tiger, and the crocodile become historically irrelevant and evolutionarily obsolete. It's the nasty little pests, that endure. Mosquitoes. Flies. Millipedes.Rats and other small vermin. Mubarak has been deposed. Nasty little Scott Walker and his morally stunted pals, the Fitzgerald brothers are still swarming around the dung heap they call a state budget. So, if you could help get rid of any of these pests, Russ, that'd be great. I have a feeling you're done running for elected office in this state we share, but maybe you could talk to that other smart guy who's been doing so much talking on our issues, you know: John Nichols.Now there's an interesting byte of political buzz!
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