Still Not Cut Out for Country Life]

At first, I thought the ugly red welt on my leg was a massive tick, and I did what anyone else would have done faced with a similar problem: started digging it out with a pair of tweezers. Turns out it wasn't a tick, just a welt, and it bled, a lot.

I noticed, after a while, that it was itchy, and that there were three other welts. So I did what anyone would have done, faced with a similar situation, and scratched them. They got itchier.

More bumps started appearing on my hand. I tried to ignore them. They started itching too, as if someone was jabbing my skin with a clump of blunt needles. The itch started to drive me batty. In turn, I drove everyone around me batty. It became worse, as if someone decided to jam the needles into my bone and start wiggling them around.

A few days later, by a brilliant piece of deduction, I convince myself that the cause was fleas, to be found either in my car or at my desk in the office. Neither K or O are afflicted, QED.

By this time, the welts on my leg had become larger and angrier. I am convinced I have Black Parrot Disease. I visit a local doctor, who tells me I have insect bites and that my leg is infected. We discuss the relative merits of English versus American doctoring, and why it is that British people don't like taking medicine, relative to people over here who seem to think that access to drugs is in the Constitution. He gives me antibiotics.

Neighbors come over. They know about country diseases. They take one look and say: "It's poison ivy." Makes sense. I probably rubbed against some while rooting out an entire bed's worth of weeds a couple of weekends ago. My endless scratching helped spread it around.

I borrow the neighbors' anti-poison-ivy spray, which makes everything even itchier. Not yet sure if this is a good thing. Reach inevitably conclusion that the great outdoors isn't great at all, but is, in fact, dangerous.

UPDATE, August 3: Still itching. Might kill myself.

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