My fiance lives in a beautiful new house in a beautiful new development in beautiful Avon, CT, but, man, around this time of year, her yard is infested with little sand fleas that freak me out BIG time. It all tracks back to the worst experience of my life that wasn’t actually all that bad.
Let me clarify…
There are bad experiences in life and then there are BAD experiences. Like your daughter having open heart surgery, like mine did when she was 13 months old. Like getting ovarian cancer in your mid-30′s, like my sister did. Like having your father die two days before your wedding, like my ex-wife’s father did. This is not a post about any of that.
But those damn sand fleas reminded me of a lower-case-”b”-bad experience that I had about a dozen years ago in Costa Rica. I was on vacation with my ex-wife and we were having an absolutely wonderful time. If you’ve never been to Costa Rica, go at once — despite what you’re about to read. It really is a beautiful country and well worth the trip.
One day, though, we signed up for a kayak tour of a mangrove swamp. The idea was to see nature “up close and personal” in a kayak. There would be birds, fish, maybe even a crocodile. We met up with our group and drove in a van to the middle of nowhere – which is not hard to do in Costa Rica. We each had our own kayak and we plopped into the water to start our adventure.
As we entered the mangrove, I found myself swatting at a bee or two that circled around my head. No problem, right? We’re getting in touch with nature, man, that’s the deal! Hey, is that a fucking CROCODILE I see over there? (It wasn’t.)
Alas, one or two bees quickly turned into many, many bees, none of which stung me, but ALL of which seemed to find me — and only me — quite irresistable. I paddled over to our guide, who I’m sure thought I was having an epileptic seizure, since I was swatting so violently and repeatedly at the air around my head.
“What is this?” I pleaded with him. “These bees are driving me insane.”
“They like you,” he said, smiling. “Try wiping off your sunblock.”
I did, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. At one point, I could see my shadow reflected in the water of the swamp. “How did Linc from the ‘Mod Squad’ get into my kayak?” I thought for a moment, until I realized to my horror that I actually had an afro of bees on my head. I considered simply jumping into the water, except that it was about two feet deep (and there were those crocodiles to take into account, of course).
I pulled my t-shirt over my head as best I could and soldiered on. At one point, our guide spotted a Caracara Hawk and everybody came to a stop to admire it. I was oblivious. We could have spotted Bigfoot and I wouldn’t have cared — unless he would’ve scared away the bees.
About two hours later, our journey through the mangrove swamp was complete. We got out of our kayaks and, about 12 seconds later, the bees were with me no more. Some of our fellow kayakers came over to me to express their sympathies — and their amazement at the number of bees my head seemed to attract.
“How bad was it?” I asked my ex-wife.
“Bad,” she said. “It was bad.”
I’m just too dang sweet, I suppose. No, that can’t possibly be it…
