Jackie: A Tale of Perversity and Woe

On my birthday I went to visit my grandmother, who lives with my aunt and uncle, and they have this little asshole of a dog who was always trying to bite me when I was a kid, and I've hated him ever since. He was there when I visited, and I sat a bit on his pillow, and when I got back home later I found a bunch of bug bites on my butt and thigh. Then, later, some more bites appeared on my feet. I figured it was because I was wearing this certain perfume that bugs seem to love, since every time I wear it and go outside I get bug bites all over me.

But I kept getting them the next day still, more on my legs and whatnot, and at 3 in the morning I decided it would be a swell idea to try and find out why. And I kept reading stuff about fleas, and how they tend to bite your feet and legs, and how their eggs hatch when they sense warmth and they start biting immediately, et cetera, and I promptly started having a huge freakout. I didn't get to sleep until about 5:30 in the morning, and it was amazing I was able to manage to do that (probably because I had a glass of wine to calm myself down and make me sleepier). I kept imagining microscopic fleas swarming all over me and biting me everywhere and everything ITCHED SO FUCKING BAD AND WOULDN'T STOP ITCHING. I vowed to clean ALL THE THINGS!!! the next day.

I didn't clean all the things, but I did wash my sheets, vacuum my mattress and computer chair and stuffed animals and my arm-chair in the living room. I felt better and relaxed for a while and made myself some tea.

And then two more bites appeared on my toes.

This triggered yet another nervous breakdown. I had to go to work, though, where I was given a LOT of work to do in only four hours, and barely managed to finish it all, which was making me even more stressed, and I was still flipping out about the fleas. Two more bite marks started appearing on my arm and I ran for the sink and, in a crazed panic, tried to drown the supposed fleas that were supposedly biting me. About an hour later, it was like there had never been any bite marks there at all. Which was weird.

At one point during work I broke into uncontrolled sobs, which was incredibly embarrassing, as this is the second time I've broken into a crying fit at work because of stress, and the job isn't even all that stressful! I felt like I was losing my damn mind. I kept worrying about how I was going over to Rob's house, and I was gonna give THEM fleas, and how fucking difficult it was going to be to get rid of them and would I have to get an exterminator and how much that was going to cost and oh my god they're on me right now they are everywhere and everything is itchy and horrible and it was all because of that stupid fucking dog, THANKS FOR THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT, ASSHOLE.

I did manage to calm down about it, eventually, after my mom talked some sense into me, that if we did actually have fleas, how come her and my dad were totally unaffected, and how I'd been walking around outside at night over the past few days and I'm sensitive to bug bites anyway.

And then, the new bites stopped appearing. Everywhere stopped itching (for the most part). And I'm wondering how much of it was purely psychological. Obviously the itching was, but could some of the bug bites have been psychological too? You know, like in a hypochondriac type of way? Is that even possible? The human brain is a strange thing.