High Anxiety

Today I ran across some erroneous information and feel the need to set the record straight.

Some idiot did some research (it consisted of playing Twister with his assistants and your tax dollar probably paid for it) and has come to the misguided conclusion that people who experience extreme anxiety emit a scent that, while undetectable to humans, is repellent to mosquitoes.

Ha.

I am the Empress of Anxiety. If tiaras were handed out for worry and self-induced stress -- based on either real or imagined events -- I would be wearing a towering stack of jeweled crowns because, simply stated, worry is what I do best. It's my thing. My forte. My spec-i-ality.

I can take any event and twist it into a pretzel of horror over which I will perspire and twitch for hours.

Ex. Are you a minute late? Then you must be in a ditch, outstretched hand a few inches short of being able to reach your cell phone as you bleed into the mud. Or, are you traveling outside of the tri-state area? A tornado, flood, hurricane will affect your plans. Taking a cruise? I hope you're a strong swimmer.  Enjoying an outdoor event? Beware of drive-by shootings. Adopting a puppy? What if it grows up to be Cujo?

Pretty impressive, I know...and I'm not even warmed up. Yet, despite this so-called "research," mosquitoes love me more than any other human alive today.

Is "Susan Says..." here???

In fact, this summer I should finally act on my plan to get rich by renting out my services at summer parties...

If I attend your backyard soiree, no one else will get bitten. The mosquitoes will ignore all others and just line up in a hovering queue to wait their turn to chomp any exposed part of my irresistible flesh... including eyelids, knuckles and the backs of the knees.

This has gone on since I was a succulent little girl and my mother, ahead of her time in her mistrust of harsh chemical sprays, tried all kinds of natural, homemade potions to save me.

Remember this?

Lemon eucalyptus...useless. Clove oil...nope. Even the popular Skin-So-Soft by Avon -- used successfully by hunters and fisherman in the swamps of  Louisiana where mosquitoes are the size of peacocks -- could not stave off those flying bloodsuckers once they'd caught sight of my chubby arms.

And, being card-carrying Hungarians we, of course, tried garlic. So, not only did I stink to high heaven but I got bitten to hell and back anyway.

What?

Calydryl was our choice.

Vampires steered clear of me, though. And that wasn't a bad thing since, at the time, I had little interest in living forever in a drafty stone castle. Although it seems like a perfectly acceptable lifestyle to me now.

As a kid, I was a connect-the-dots of calamine lotion every summer evening. My mother would shake the bottle vigorously as she dreamed up new combos of herbal aromas while liberally daubing me with the pink liquid, dmonishing me to "sit still" until it dried.

Back then adults used to comment on how sweet I must be to make the mosquitoes love me so much.

For a while this made me feel special despite the red, itching welts that covered my body. But I soon decided that I would rather taste like curdled milk spiked with urine than endure the voracious devotion of every mosquito in New York City.

I can't imagine who this guy based his research on. They must have been amateurs when it comes to real anxiety--just pretending to lie awake at night muttering  about flesh eating bacteria, pit bull attacks and David Wright's fragile emotional health.

"Why, oh why, have I never reached my full potential??

Whether anxiety invites bites or bites cause anxiety, I already have my first one. With Memorial Day less than a week away, it's right on time.