Camped in Noble Canyon, Pine Valley, CA
Tiny, black flies are driving Scout and me crazy, and the warmer it gets the more there are. For the first time since we got here, I have seriously considered going back to San Diego before our 14 days are up. I hate bugs that hover around me, fly in my face, get sucked up my nose. HATE.
And, despite two-and-a-half years on the road, I still haven’t made screens for my windows and side door, so the bugs follow us inside. There is no refuge.
At least they don’t bite, there’s that.
I was five the first time a bug freaked me out
Playing in my grandparents’ basement rec room, I looked up and saw a horrifying sight: a two-inch-long insect rippling along a ceiling tile on dozens of tiny legs. I had never seen or imagined such a thing, so of course I let loose an ear-splitting scream. My mother came running down the stairs to see me pointing as I screeched.
“Oh,” she said, relieved that I wasn’t bleeding. “That’s just a centipede.”
She went back upstairs, leaving me with that, that THING.
Just a centipede? JUST?! As far as I was concerned, it was a horror movie in real life. Then it got worse. Suddenly, I noticed there were spiders in the basement, and I stopped going down there to play. I refused to enter the garage, a hell hole of face-sticking webs. Playing in the yard one day, I stooped to sit in the grass and discovered a new terror: a garter snake.
The world was not the friendly place I had imagined
It was 1955. I was now eight years old. The movie “Tarantula” was playing at the Broadway Theater a couple of blocks away. By this time, I had developed a taste for scary movies, and I begged my mother to take me.
“No!”
“But why not?” I whined.
“Because you will be up with nightmares for weeks.”
She was right about that. I was the Nightmare Kid, waking up screaming on the regular. I dreamed about monsters chasing me, not being able to run away—and of course, bugs. So naturally, I took my allowance and snuck off to see “Tarantula” one afternoon while Mom was at work.
It was a cheesy, “B” movie starring John Agar, Mara Corday, and Leo G. Carroll (of the Topper TV series) as a mad scientist who experiments with ‘giantism’, making animals grow much larger than they’re supposed to. Of course, something goes wrong and a tarantula never STOPS growing.
Spoiler alert: It kills poor Leo, who somehow got quite messed up first, 
and breaks out of the desert lab. By the end, it’s as big as the small, nearby town it attacks. The Air Force saves the day, bombing the monster arachnid with napalm just before it reaches town. It writhes in agony as it burns and the hero and his girlfriend kiss, because that’s what you do when you’re saved from a horrible death. FADE OUT
Oh. My. GAWD.
I walked home, electrified. That spider was all I could think about. Oddly enough, though, my phobia faded. I had a few nightmares, of course—and stifled my screams because I didn’t want Mom to find out what I’d done—but now I had a new obsession, science fiction, and a new TV show called “Twilight Zone” fed right into it.
The spiders in the basement no longer frightened me. Now, it was just the unnamed THING in the basement, a ghost perhaps, or a demon, maybe an alien. It didn’t matter. But the basement door had better be CLOSED AT ALL TIMES.
It wasn’t long before Mom banned “Twilight Zone,” but it was too late.
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Your going to start looking like this guy if you get enough bug bites!
Buy no-seem screen material from a surplus store, discount fabric store, or online. I found some for $3/ yard for 54″ wide locally here in St. Paul.
Common contact cement from the hardware or home improvement store glues Velcro to metal or plastic or polyester or nylon screen materials. Titelock brand plastic and fabric glue works too. The contact cement is about as toxic smelly as you can get but has not been improved on for versatility and strength for years. Its been used for formica to wood on counters for like forever. It’s cheap and comes in lots of sizes.
The adhesive on 3M velcro lets loose in the heat. If you add one of the above glues it helps. Cheap non adhesive velcro from the surplus , craft store or online is better if combined with the glue.
I glued my velcro to my metal window frame, my plastic door panel, my headliner ( for curtians) and the polyester screen material with contact cement.
I used velcro folded and glued over the edge of the screen. You could also fold duct tape over the for more strength first.
I decide against magnets, but for an all metal door frame on you van you might like them. I trust the velcro as stronger in a wind and overall. Velcro is cheaper then magnets.
When ever possible make all the screens the same size with the velcro mounted in the same places on each window. Even if window are a different size and some of them have extra fabric hanging down. This really helps putting them up at night and storing them.
Screens on the insides of doors make the window look tinted and can stay in place while driving and most of the time.
Time to bug out and stop Procrastinating!
Thanks, David! My friend Linda May and I are going to put up screens on my van when I go to visit her in the Sequoiah NP where she is camp hosting, next month.
Ditto, ditto, ditto! Do you remember DRILL? i was 8 in 1951 and could never really figure it out but just the word scared me.
No, I don’t remember DRILL — what was that?
Love your writing. Your Bugs story is so good. I used to live with the many bugs in Florida. I caught one coming into my car and froze. That would have been THE worst. I fortunately had some alcohol spray and hit it at an angle and it flew off the car. THANK Goodness. I probably would have had to sell that car.
Bugs are a major reason I have no interest in visiting Florida, lol! Thanks for your comment, JB!
Don’t give up! Have you tried one of those little battery operated devices yet that claim to keep flies, mosquitoes and black flies away? There are personal ones, and ones for bigger areas. I’ve not tried one myself yet, but would consider it if I was planning to stay here in Utah for any length of time, because those black flies (cedar gnats?) are horrible, and they do bite. If it doesn’t work, you can always return it to Walmart… 🙂 ~ Roxy ~ aka. Nomad for Nature http://NomadforNature.wordpress.com/
No, I haven’t tried that… will look into it, thanks!