We Hate To Bug You

I’d like to take a brief trip back in time. Not very far. I’d like for us all to travel back to the week of Thanksgiving and one of the greatest transitions into the Christmas season I’ve ever experienced.

Maybe on Saturday or Sunday the weekend before, I checked my weather app to see what the holiday would bring and was surprised to find Black Friday adorned with a snowflake icon. Tapping into the day, I saw that there could be some serious accumulation. My initial reaction to this was one of frustration. We had planned to visit family, leaving Wednesday afternoon and coming home Saturday morning. I didn’t want a treacherous return trip. But my apprehension soon gave way to excitement. It would be the first snow! On the day after Thanksgiving! What a way to kick off the time of Yuletide cheer!

Still, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. The weather app is like that flakey friend who makes constant grandiose promises only to scale back as the date in question approaches. Blizzards and stretches of pleasant weather predicted a week out often go poof three days before.

But this did not happen. On the contrary, as we got closer to Thanksgiving, the predicted accumulation grew and grew. Friday morning, we decided to cut our stay short, drove three hours home, loaded up on groceries, and pulled into our garage as the first flurries hit.

The next day, it continued to come down as we put on the holiday playlist, hung decorations, and watched the Garfield Christmas special. It was beautiful.

After that, there followed about three months of misery. Snow removal, awful road conditions, the sun setting bleakly before five, fluctuations in temperature causing snow to melt and refreeze, dangerous sidewalks, et cetera.

And so, as I write this with a winter storm watch looming, I feel none of that excitement I did back in November. Because I’m just sorta done with winter. I want summer! I want warm days that last deep into the night, evenings on the deck reading a book and sipping a cold drink, blooming flowers, the works!

But the point of my above anecdote is that it’s easy to look forward to a season when it hasn’t quite arrived yet. And sure, sometimes, everything comes together like it did in those days after Thanksgiving. But a lot of the time, things can be a real pain in the ass. That goes for winter, and it goes for summer, too. There will be days when the sun is excruciating, when the heat and the humidity combine to make it so awful out that sweat pools in my sandals while walking across the grocery store parking lot. Or when it’s breezy and pleasant… except for one problem: said pleasant breeze has brought with it smoke from wildfires in Canada.

Or when I sit down to read on the deck and find myself besieged by pests.

What I’m saying is, you might not be thinking about mosquitoes at this very moment, but it’s probably worth picking up some bug-control options now so you’re ready when the reality of the summer sets in. These zappers to be specific. They use UV light and a charged grid to de-squito a space up to 250 square feet, outdoors or inside your home. Pretty neat, right?

So maybe get some?

As for me, I gotta go to the gas station so I have fuel for the snow blower here in a couple days.

Deep sigh