The Perp In My Pants

Something bit me on the butt again. Usually it's when I'm asleep, and I assume it's a spider, because I assume I sleep with spiders, and I assume they object to being sat on. This time I was plenty awake and I was the one doing the objecting. I had been sitting on the steps outside and all of a sudden something was biting me on the butt. I jumped up and dervished around madly slapping myself and yiping and nobody paid any attention because the neighbors that have been here a while have mostly quit looking our way when stuff like this happens. (It wasn't just the one incident either. They figure they're better off not knowing.)

So I thought I got whatever it was under control and I even looked for the perp in my pants but didn't come up with anything. I've got a great pair of pants for that. They're beige linen with an elastic waist and I bought them because they were super roomy even though they fit closely at the hips. Then I sent them through the wash and they came out mottled orange and big enough to shelter a scout troop. They still fit in the waist but I could have a whole circus act in there with monkeys and hoops and nobody would ever know. Reaching into my pants up to the elbow is another thing my neighbors avoid looking at.

So now they're my gardening pants.

Biting on the butt: you shouldn't even get two points for that. It's not a small target. I suspected an ant. Ants are known to hang around on my steps and I was pretty sure they bite just to be dicks. I looked online, finding mainly articles from the pest-control companies, and they're likely to say anything. "Ants will come into your house to canvas for Save The Children and then steal your ID," they'll say, and offer to send someone right over with napalm.

The actual science sites say ants don't bite. They just latch on with their face and then spin and sting you for 360 degrees around. That, my dears, is advanced.

I couldn't find any evidence of a bite where I'd felt it, even though I took my pants pretty much all the way down to check. (Somewhere there must be someone who would pay good money to see that, but they don't live on this block. People, I can hear you pulling your blinds.) So I went about my business, and five minutes later I felt a whole new bite. This time I pulled my elastic waistband all the way out and something the hell shot out of there, past all the monkeys. I only got a brief glance but it looked like a skinny ant and it must have had wings or a ripcord. I still don't know what it was or what it was doing in my pants.

I haven't ruled out an earwig. I hear they seek out dark cracks and crevices. So.

And I still couldn't see any visible signs of a bite. Until the next whole day, when a giant red patch showed up with a purple bruise around it. And another one in the second spot.

Thank goodness. You don't want to get bit on the butt and have nothing to show for it. No one on the block wants to look, but Dave did. He has to. It's a for-better-or-for-worse thing. It's his job.