ANT-tagonistic

You’d think being used to having pain all the time, a little ant bite or two wouldn’t bother me. You’d be wrong.

You see, ants don’t like me. I try to leave them alone. When I’m in the garden, do I bother them? No, I do not. When I’m watering my flowers, do I bother them? No, I do not. So why do they feel it necessary to go out of their way to bite me?

I had my first real run in with ants when I was out taking pictures of cotton fields one summer. There was a bit of a slope in one field, and I was trying to get just the right angle, so walked out into the cotton a little ways. Big mistake. Those nice bushy cotton plants were hiding fire ant mounds. By the time I got back to the car I was dancing around and brushing ants off my legs. Needless to say, they got their bites in.

Next I was trying to find barns to photograph. I found a nice red one sitting at the far edge of a field of corn. To get a good shot, I stood along the opposite edge of the field among some short weeds. Unfortunately, those short weeds were just tall enough to disguise a fire ant hill. It wasn’t long before I beat a hasty retreat! And yes, more bites.
At least I got good use out of the picture, with putting our little Scarecrow Ellie in it for the October page of her 2007 calender.

It took weeks for all those ant bites to heal. That was bad enough, but I think it set up an allergic reaction to ant bites, and not just fire ants. Those stupid little black ants bite me, and I get a big blister, a red swollen area 2-3" round, and it itches like crazy!

The simple solution would be to put some kind of cream with benzocaine or lidocaine on the bites to numb the pain. Only trouble with that is the fact I have a reaction to those meds, and it just makes things worse.

Guess it’s not just ants that don’t like me. My own body doesn’t like me much either.