Itching for a Vacation

We were in bed, listening. In the kitchen of our rented seaside cottage, something was moving. To find out what, one of us would have to slink down that narrow iron spiral staircase in the dark. Barefoot.

My husband, having rejected many traditional male roles, was unfettered by the sort of testosterone surge that impels a man to declare, “Don’t worry, honey; I’ll go see.”

“It’s just a mouse,” he grunted, and rolled over.

I was unconvinced. With the flashlight, I leaned over the rail of the loft bedroom and peered into the dark, wondering once again why I had come to this vacation spot, so near paradise yet so like purgatory.

We were only three days into our Bahamas vacation, and I was hating it. I spend 50 workweeks a year daydreaming about those two weeks when I will not be working, when I can live the kind of life I really deserve. This was not the resort of my dreams.

Early on, I tried to ignore the bad direction this trip was taking. Our plane seats didn’t recline. The taxi driver charged us four times as much as he should have to go from one airport building to another. The first day at the resort it never stopped raining.

The resort was not walking distance from anything, and--guess what?--no taxis. We would be trapped.

One sight stopped me cold. On our initial tour of the resort, we saw on the outdoor tiki bar a jaunty basket, brimming with complimentary items that guests were welcome to use: brightly colored bottles of bug repellent. I don’t like having to rub something all over myself just to go outside.

The resort, best left unnamed, was featured prominently in a recent national travel magazine. It promised dazzling fish, turquoise seas, deserted beaches, friendly people, and truth to tell, we found all that.

We also found bugs. Hungry bugs.

*

At the bar before dinner, people were joking about the mosquitoes and making a game of spraying repellent on the backs of each other’s legs.

Our cottage had screens. You don’t often see that in remote tropical places, and we thought that meant we could sleep comfortably. As soon as we got into bed, we started slapping at our arms, our legs, our necks, our ears. I started scratching at my hair. We were surrounded.

We cranked the ceiling fan up as fast as it would go, tucked the sheet in tight around our bodies and hoped the wind would drive the pests away. I slept fitfully, dreaming that a rat was softly nuzzling my ear.

Daytime was fine--beautiful beaches, clear water, gentle winds. We swam; we snorkeled; we sailed. I would itch maddeningly if I sat in the sun or stayed too long in the saltwater but, comparatively, we were comfortable in the daylight.

At dinner on the outdoor patio, we started to notice other people’s red spots and bug bites became a prime topic of conversation. Back in the cottage, Don plugged holes around our windows with spare towels. I fetched ice cubes in the middle of the night to try to numb the backs of my legs. I didn’t care anymore if I bumped into a giant rat in the kitchen. I just wanted to stop itching and sleep.

Bruce, a guy who held up one end of the bar a lot, overheard me complaining.

“I’ve got a fogger,” he said. “It’s good old-fashioned poison, but it’ll get those critters. I’ll come down this afternoon and do your place.” My husband promised to name our firstborn after him.

That night, there were no mosquitoes. But something else was biting us. I was now convinced there were fleas--or something worse--in the bed. I would have slept on the floor but for fear of waking up face to face with a rat.

*

Our refuge was the hotel’s battered old sailboat, which gave us access to the only bug-free environment on the island. We took it out as often as we could, but the day after a bunch of British tourists capsized it, we noticed the mast had a nasty crack near the base and was tilting at too sharp an angle. We turned back and got about a 100 yards from shore before it collapsed into the water. My husband had to swim us in, pulling the boat. Gone was our only means of escape.

And the sun was going down for the day.

Trying to keep my sense of humor, I strapped on the secret weapon I had brought, never thinking I’d have to use it: a bright-yellow plastic band that was supposed to repel biting insects. At the tiki bar, I raised my spotted leg to show off my trendy new ankle jewelry.

“Hey, everybody,” I said, “I’ve got my flea collar on.” I slept with it that night; it didn’t help one bit.

A woman in a neighboring cottage was having a rough time too and had taken to wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks and shoes to dinner. She asked why people were sitting around the nightly beach bonfire when it was so hot.

“It repels the bugs,” I said. “The locals burn coconut shells to keep them away.” I pointed out all the waiters, who were seated directly in the path of the smoke.

She grabbed my arm in alarm.

“A rat this big just ran past the coconuts,” she said, holding her hands a foot apart. Then she pulled a chair close to the fire.

We shared our mosquito coils with her, trying to ration them to get through the last two nights. I began to daydream about leaving. Worse, I began to daydream about being back at work. I began packing with enthusiasm.

The day before we left, a friendly chambermaid brought me a homemade concoction: a gallon jug of brown liquid strained from sweet sage leaves she had gathered and boiled. At this point, I would have stuck my legs into the bonfire if someone said it would work. She told me to pour the liquid onto paper towels and rub it all over after my shower.

It felt cool and astringent, but the bugs kept biting. We lit a mosquito coil and set it under the bed, thinking it might drive whatever was in the mattress out. It didn’t.

After seven days, we were finally leaving. The owner of the resort, also the airplane pilot for the first leg of our journey, noticed the bites on my legs.

“You know what that is? That’s an allergic reaction,” he said. “You could have all that even with just one bite.” That didn’t console me. And I didn’t believe him.

On his small plane, as I tried to keep any part of my body from touching any other part of my body, a nurse advised me to get megadoses of Benadryl, fast. I had a plane connection to make and just a few more hours of traveling. I thought I could hang on.

On our flight to New York, we had the worst seats, right in the back by the toilets and food service area. No window. I sat by the wall. The seat irritated my hypersensitive legs. The air-conditioning hadn’t come on yet.

Suddenly, a flight attendant grabbed a cold soda can and it exploded all over us--in our hair, on our legs, soaking our clothes and carry-ons. I stared at the brown rivulets snaking down the wall where my window should have been.

All I could think was, “That was it. THAT was my vacation.”

The flight attendant handed me cool, wet towels. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

So was I. So was I.

Schiller is a copy editor at the Courant in Conneticut.