Sure, Saipan may seem all innocuous and fun until you’re walking along, dinking with your camera and almost stagger into a picture window-sized cobweb, custom built by an arachnid so big that it can suck out all your body’s juices in 20 seconds flat, leaving you looking like one of those shrunken, pruney voodoo dolls they find in witchdoctors’ waiting rooms in the jungles of Haiti.
You know why we here in Minnesota don’t have this manner of man-eating spiders and Rodents of Unusual Size? Because of our freeze-your-face-off winters, that’s why. What would you rather have? A few weeks a year where you have to take inventory of your fingers and toes when you return from shoveling or have to fend off Skull Island-caliber bugs and lizards every time you take out the recycling?
Even the jungle’s itty bitty spiders are programmed to inflict maximum human discomfort and embarrassment with their uncanny penchant for biting people in warm, hairy, unmentionable places. Believe me. And it itches like a mofo, too.
I know I cowered in my apartment for two straight months and complained lavishly of cabin fever this past winter, but I’ve acquired a newfound love for the occasional spell of kill-everything cold. From now on, every time the temperature dips below zero, I’ll just imagine all the bugs and rodents dying off that would chomp on my doodle given half a chance.
Anyway, it’s good to be back in good ol’ Minnesota where there’s no question that I’m at the top of the food chain.
I’m wicked tan, by the way. I’m also so exhausted and jetlagged that I almost fainted while walking to Subway this morning. Or maybe it was the wine I was force-fed all the way from Guam to LAX. Whatever. I’m gonna go throw up.
Weather | 3.04.2008 17:31 |
Oh, I understand your appreciation. I am from the South, land of warm weather, humidity, and way-too-big bugs. I’ve had that “kill everything cold” belief for years. I blame it on two infestations during two hot summers (during childhood). The fuzzy caterpillar invasion, and the chinese beetle invasion. And well, as for too-big spiders? I don’t even want to think about it.
That’s why I love Minnesota too. I’ll take the snow, negative temperatures and ice anyday to ensure the bugs and spiders are either gone, or at least extremely small. 
3.04.2008 18:38
You’re absolutely right. Minnesota is MUCH more pleasant than the Fire Swamp.
4.04.2008 8:38
Welcome back. You will feel better after you have walked around looking to see if anything green is poking out of the ground yet.
Oh, god, the fuzzy caterpillar invasion of my youth creeped me out for years! And while I love my home San Francisco, it is a flea trap, built on sand. Once I went home to visit my mother, and within a minute of walking in the door, I could see the fleas leaping onto my legs (she had a cat, and they didn’t bite her for some reason). I had to make her fleabomb the house before I could sleep there.
After 20 years in MN, I seem too have built up a partial immunity to the mosquitoes.
4.04.2008 9:01
welcome home pally. I have no desire to see your tan. If I do, i’ll steal it. Fuk A Whole Lot of You Being Tan
Dick.
4.04.2008 9:45
I believed that too, until I saw a box elder bug crawl out of his -30 sleeping bag and say what’s for breakfast? the other day. But they still don’t bite your doodle.
4.04.2008 11:05
St Paul Girl – I wish someone had pointed this out to me years ago. I thought we didn’t have any big critters around here because no one has used Minnesota to test atomic weapons (recently).
Nayana – Two points for being the first to comment on the “Princess Bride” stolen line.
Joanna – Ditto on me and MN mosquitoes. I just wish that were true for all mosquitoes. The ones in Romania leave welts on me that last for days. And they’re smart little bastards too. They work in teams like velociraptors.
Hans – Sounds like you’re back to your old self. I’ve missed your unique brand of commentary. See if you can get through all of April without an ER visit. I’ll buy you a doughnut.
Sleeper – The talking bugs are the worst.
4.04.2008 11:30
