HOLY SHIT....CROTCH CRICKETS

Yikes, look at these little bastards. And you can get them from sexual contact. I mean sure, there are far worse things transmitted through humping, but these ones are little crabs that establish colonies in your southern region. I have never had pubic lice for all of those who are wondering, so this little blog is not going to reveal any personal secrets about an infestation of willy bugs. I just got to thinking about them when I was again resourcing my own paranoia of all things that go on in a public washroom. I did a bit of research and found that it is only unlikely that you can get crabs from a toilet seat, not impossible which is what I had hoped for. They can't live for very long away from the warmth of a humans crotch.
*heaving*
*wiping mouth*
I don't often think about these little beasts when I am occupied with other concerns in a public washroom but these little ladies and fellas should definitely be added to the list. Look at it in this picture, it looks like a kids gummy candy that you'd buy to gross out the girls in your grade 2 class, only it's not. And you'll know you've got them, cause it's itchy, and you can see them or their eggs. It's like an alien colony forming in the most inopportune area I can personally think of. Unlike most aliens I know public lice survive from eating human blood.
*GULP*
This means that they bite. Down there.
Tiny little crab looking insects that want to bite on penis and eat the blood they are able to get out of it. Ah hah, no thank you sir, I will continue to hover over the toilet bowl, and I will be damn careful who I decide to share bed linens with. Above and beyond that I am doing a full on chop stick investigation of the pubic regions before I get jiggy again.
I was thinking I'd just stick my wiener in the freezer or have a nice long bath and drown the little bastards if ever I were to acquire a lice farm of my own, but through research (thank god for google) I know this will not work. Neither does shaving the entire area. You will need to go to the doctor and get some cream to cut the little shits lives short, and ruin their eggs (by the way if a public lice lives on your goodies for a month it will be able to lay upwards of 50 eggs).
The burning question......Why can't pubic lice be trusted?
Well, they want to bite your junk and drink blood from it, I'd say that's worse than sharks man.

Blood Suckers

LEECHES
A few years back some of my best friends and I were vacationing at our friend Lisa's family's cottage on The French River in northern Ontario. The cottage was big, beautiful and welcoming, tucked neatly away in the bush just outside of Noelville, Ontario.
It was, and probably will always be one of the greatest cottage adventures I have ever known, except for one small thing.
The fucking leeches.
It was a beautiful day in August, the sun was shining, the wind was warm and gentle, and the motor boat taunted us with the possibility of exploration. The five of us (known as the SCA group) jumped into the small motorized boat and headed out into the water. Lisa propped herself onto the seat behind the wheel and navigated the machine to a favourite swimming spot from her childhood. When we got there it was a bit awkward to park the boat, but in the end the trials of docking were far outweighed by the magnificent little island that she took us to. Our own private resort, minus all things resortish, but it really felt like 'getting away'.
Lisa showed us a rock we could jump off of into water deep enough to make the dive safely, and then rocks which led back up to land. I wanted to run and jump off of the rocks, but instead I investigated my available exits from the water. I noticed ( as I slid uncontrolled almost all the way into the river) that the rocks were
covered in a thin film of algae which made it very difficult to get out of the water. I slid part way into the black abyss before frantically clawing my way back out of the cold aqua. I noticed when I regained composure that my shorts and 'Ocean Pacific' T-Shirt were covered in a thin film of brownish green algae (sludge). My first thought was 'Oh no, that's where leeches live'. I did not want a physical reenactment of the scene in Stand By Me where Gordie Lachance pulls a blood covered leech out of his tightie whiteies.
"Lisa, are there leeches in this water?", I asked.
"Ian, my family has been swimming here all of my life and no one has ever had a leech on them."
I felt pretty good about that....I mean, what are the odds?
I psyched myself up and jumped into the cold black water. Karmen joined me, and then Faustine, the other two stayed on dry land.
It was a bit difficult to maneuver the rocks to get out, which basically means you used your hands to find grooves in the flat slippery rocks and then pulled yourself out of the water like a paraplegic.
We splashed gaily in the water, reinacted baywatch moments and floated lazily in the refreshing cool, we even achieved 'mediocre' status at getting back out.
THEN.......
Karmen got out just ahead of me. She was standing on the dry rock and towel drying her legs as she pointed and laughed and made fun of me trying to get out of the water. I seemed to gain some ground and then I'd slide back down the vaseline slicked rock. My last and successful attempt at getting out yielded the most rewards and I pulled myself to my feet on safe, non slick ground.
Karmen's face turned from the jovial expression of jest to a look of sheer terror when she pointed at my southern extremities and said
"Ian, what's that on your LEG?"
Now, I cannot fully explain how these words left her mouth aside to say that by the time she got to the word leg she was hysterical.
I knew it wasn't a joke.
Nothing at that moment was funny.
I still had to look down.
I gathered up enough balls to look, praying that my nutsack was free of any black slimy carry-ons into this new airplane of heel I had boarded, and I looked down.
There, about mid calf was a small black leech attaching itself to my leg.
"Ian, my family has been swimming here all of my life and no one has ever had a leech on them."
Lisa's words rang in my head. If I were ever that lucky at the fucking Casino I'd be writing a much different blog, unfortunately, my luck is reserved to incidents where I can write blogs about why animals cannot be trusted.
This was one of those cases, and if Lisa was telling me the truth about no one ever having a fucking leech on them, well, this was just another example of piss-poor timing.
I'm not sure a second lapsed between me seeing that I was the host to a blood sucker and wilding flicking at it to get it off of my leg.
Thank God, Allah, Jah, whomever, the little bastard flew through the air and smacked against the rocks a few feet from my feet.
Karmen was still screaming and asking people to look all over her body to make sure that she hadn't been infested.....'No, no Karm, I'm fine thanks'.
When she was assured that no leeches had attached themselves to her she joined the rest of us who stared in amazement at this little black, rubbery looking mo-fo who was shimmying across the granite for the murky shield of the French River.
To this day I am not sure if Lisa lied about the leech problem just so her friends wouldn't be afraid to swim, or if I just proved my shit luck, regardless, anything that eats my blood cannot be trusted.
leeches, go back to the medical lab and be tested, but stay the fuck off of my leg, and lord willing, my balls.

No-See-ums (Family Ceratopogonidae)

I had my first (and to date only) run in with No-See-Ums in Niagara Ontario. I hate them.
Some quick facts from pelotes.jea.com

WHAT IS A NO-SEE-UM? No-see-ums are tiny biting flies that often live near water. You often see many of themswarming together in a cloud. Keep your mouth shut or you might breathe some in or swallow them! (It won’t hurt you, but it will probably make you cough.) Biting midges are called no-see-ums because they’re so tiny that it is hard to see ‘um. No-see-ums are less than ¼ of an inch long.

WHERE DO NO-SEE-UMS LIVE? They often stay in shrubs or the thick layer of dead leaves that naturally covers the ground. Scrubbing your feet around in the leaves is a good way to get them stirred up. Don’t do it! Most no-see-ums never fly more than 350 feet from their breeding area, so if they’re bothering you, you might be able to get away from them by moving a few yards

WHY DO NO-SEE-UMS BITE? Only the females bite and suck blood. They need the protein in this blood to make their eggs. No-see-ums will take blood from mammals, birds, and reptiles. Male no-see-ums are nectar feeders and do not bite. While the bite is not painful, it becomes very itchy. Some people get a red spot 1-2 inches wide! Try not to scratch the bites; it makes them itch longer and can make the bites get infected. No-see-um larvae (babies) can be found in water, mud, or moist dead leaves. They especially like to live in the dying plants along the edge of a salt marsh. The larvae eat dead plant and animal matter.

HOW CAN YOU AVOID NO-SEE-UM BITES? The best way to avoid getting bitten by no-see-ums is to wear insect repellent when you are outside in the spring, summer, and fall. Also, move quickly away from the areas where they’re swarming. If you get far enough away, they won’t follow you.

So, I was sitting on a lawn chair with my feet in the sand and drinking beer with a couple of my friends. It was really a perfect day, sun shining, sitting in the shade on the beaches of lake Ontario and playing some dumb drinking game that Erin made up. It was a great day. Then we had a nice little B-B-Q and called it a night. When I woke up in the morning I had the most severe itch on both of my feet. I was confused as to why that would be, so I pulled the cover back and discovered my feet had been bitten so severely that they were one giant red itchy mass. Pus bubbles to complete the picture.
Now, we had been drinking, even over indulging, but I was not so drunk that I would have let what looked like the entire mosquito population attack my feet.
I walked on my hands into Erin's bedroom, and she was so impressed by my skills as an acrobat that she temporarily forgot about the itch on her own feet. Okay, I didn't walk on my hands, and Erin wasn't impressed, but she did have the same pattern of bites on her feet and ankles.
I told her that it couldn't have been mosquitos, she agreed and used the word No-See-Ums. I admitted to never having heard of them (and thinking she was an idiot) so later that day when I returned home I did some research on the internet.
Turns out the little bastards live all over the place.
The worst part, there's nothing you can do to defend yourself. I don't know why it says if you find yourself in a swarm run, you can't see the damn things, and furthermore, all the bites were on my feet, so they weren't flying, they were walking in the damn sand.
RUN....meh, fuck you.
These little bitches drank my blood so they could spwan more of their nasty breed.
There is no reason to feel for a No-See-Um, they are scum that cannot be trusted.
Oh and my feet, well, they itched for a week, and I had to buy antihistamines to get the swelling to go down.
BURN NO-SEE-UMS.....BURN.

Ants

So I was just watching a video on Ants from the Natural History Museum online....
WHAT???
I learned something very interesting through giving over 28 minutes of my time to an Antamologist who recorded a lecture he gave at a university.
If you took all of the animals in a rainforest and created a pie chart to explain how much all of those animals weighed as a whole, what I mean is if you grabbed every ant in a rainforest and weighed them all at once, recorded the weight, and then did the with the other animals. Except the other animals are generalized. Like, you'd take every animal that fell under the mammal category and weigh them all together, then you'd take all of the reptiles through them all on a huge scale at once and weigh them, and then spiders as a group, and birds as a group. So on...
Anyway, almost a third of the pie chart would be allocated to the collective weight of ants.
How much does an any weigh?
Who knows, but one could be crawling on your neck right now and you might not even know. However, if a Panther from the rainforest was crawling on your leg or a python was making path across your back, well, you'd fucking know!
Yet, as a collective whole, ants weigh in on top.
That's a lot of ants, and considering as how they can lift up to 25 times their body weight, well, there's enough of those strong little fuckers to move the rainforest up to Canada if they wanted to. Hopefully they will too, I'm tired of swamps.
I don't have too much experience with ants, except that one time I got hammered when I was camping and I got the bed spins so bad I had to crawl out of the tent on all 4's to puke, and I passed out in a red ant hill. I didn't know until the morning when I had 100 small red bites all over my face, in my ears and down my neck. That totally sucked..
It was that night that my distrust for ants in general began. I mean, strong or not, why bully the passed out kid? Obviously I was too intoxicated to defend myself. I was kind of mad in the morning. Then I remembered all those times when I was a kid and I'd get my mom to boil the kettle for me so that i could take a scalding hot cup of water out to the garden and destroy every ant nest i could find, and giggle as their bodies contorted into death from the boiled water. Paybacks are a bitch.
Have you ever heard of 'Slave Maker Ants', perhaps not the most PC term in the book, but fuck, I didn't coin it.
This occurs when the Queen ant wanders into an already established ant colony and either kills or drives away all of the adults and queen ant, so that when the baby ants are born they can do her bidding. She litterally enslaves the colony and just sits down and lets the little guys do her work for her. It's kind of like the corporate takeover of Marks Work Wearhouse by the Canadian Tire Corporation, and I am one of the baby ants.
So lets do a quick review, there are more ants in the world than there are anything else. They can lift over 25 times their own weight, and they are colonized by the murderous agression of a woman. Me thinks this is reason enough to not trust an ant, but I'll give ya a few more.
You ever watch an ant run? Like see one near your foot and then try to stomp on it, but you miss, or it finds shelter in the tread of your sandal, and then it senses attack and books it. They can move. I always wonder, if you took a parking lot and got an ant to run as fast as it could across it, and then did all that dorky math shit to figure out how far a human would have to run to equal the same distance who would win? Well, it's the ant. I didn't do the math, I need one of my smarter friends for that, but I am confident, the ant would take it.
So they can run fast, climb walls and live in a cramped space.
I had a friend like that when I was smoking a lot of dope in highschool. Plus, they're ugly as all get out. I mean, there's just no redeeming quality. FUGLY!! And we all know that really ugly people can't be trusted either. They may seem nice, but a really ugly human knows they're a social abomination and they have plans......just plans....we may never know what they are either, oh, well, you might!?!? So, the same can be translated into the ant colonies of the insect world. If two really smart ants get together and leave the nest for a butt between scavaging, who knows what sort of rebellion could enter the planning stages????
Whew....I just got the shivers....you?
So the next time you throw hot water on an ant, or try to stomp on it as it's walking by, you better remember who you're fucking with.
I do.

Bears

In August of 2005 my friend Karen and I embarked on a 10 day camping trip in Tobermore, Ontario. BLACK BEAR COUNTRY. Not a week before leaving we heard about a woman who was sitting in her lawnchair, on her campsite, and attacked by a black bear. Not only attacked, mauled and killed by the bear. She died in the hospital from the wounds she had received during the attack. The husband of the poor woman who was fatally wounded tried to save her by repeatedly stabbing the black bear as it attempted to drag his wife off into the woods. Hmmm, and people think I am paranoid because I choose to research bear safety before a camping trip? I didn't learn much, expect that bear whistles don't work, make a lot of noise when you're hiking and if you encounter a bear play dead...(play?).
There was a part of the camping trip where we went for an evening stroll. Now, I know that sharks like a little snack when the sun was setting, but I had not been educated in the dining hours of the black bear. Now, I dunno about you tree huggers out there, but I don't want fucking know about black bears. I don't want to know the difference in the size, shape and smell of their dropping depending on what they ate (and believe me I found all of this on the net) I just don't want them to eat me. Anyway, so the 4 of us are on our evening hike and we see the park rangers just up ahead of us. They are both standing outside of their truck and one of them is holding a radar detector that resembled what attaached to my parents roof in the days of converters before cable television. My friend Gary (always the inquisitive one) asked what they were doing.
I didn't want to know.
"Tracking bears", said one of the wardens.
I felt my legs hollow.
Gary; "Really, are there any around"?
Warden; "Yeah, there's one through the bush this way", pointing in a direction.
My bowels turned to water.
Gary; "How close"?
I thought about plugging my ears.
Warden; "About 100 yards"
I don't know what happened to me at that point, but it wasn't good. Then, the two wardens put the antenna into the bed of the truck and drove away. Leaving the 4 of us wandering within 100 yards of a fucking black bear. I wanted to chase after the truck, jump in the bed and scream DRIVE!!! DRIVE!!! with little to no concern about the other 3. But, as I always do, I fought the urge and pretended to be as unconcerned as my hiking buddies. Apparently I did a piss-poor job of hiding my fear because the three of those bastards made jokes about how much faster i was walking. We made it back to the campsite (and not before passing a sign that read 'Bear in area, travel with caution'). That night we got hammered. They did it for the sake of the party, I did it to feel less when the inevitable mauling occured. As you can probably surmise no mauling took place, but I slept that night, and I only have Labatts Blue to thank for it.
Two months later I moved to Calgary, ALberta.
In Ontario we know the western provinces for 3 reasons; Mountains, Cowboys and Large Animal Attacks.
I didn't want to get off the fucking plane in case a Grizzly was snacking on the customer service agents at the WestJet desk.
I have been here for three months now, and have not yet seen a bear (however, i did see a Coyote running across the street not 2 blocks from my house, you don't see that shit in the GTA).
Why bears can't be trusted.
Well, they eat people, nuff said!