When I had my outdoor shower built, I thought of the things that would prevent me from using it. Rain, cold, lightning, and so on. Nothing I could not handle. However, the one thing I did not plan on was love bugs.
For those of you that do not live in Florida, love bugs are a small insect that swarm every couple of years. They are basically harmless, they do not bite, and they are at most annoying. They look a little like lightning bugs, except they do not light up. They are called love bugs because they pair up with another love bug and join together by the ass. They then buzz around happily mating until they eventually smash on your windshield. And thus the cycle of life continues. When they swarm they are everywhere.
I was sick most of the weekend. I was running a fever and coughing up phlegm. Both my sister and mother had it as well. Turned out they had bronchitis. They went to the doc for antibiotics, however I am pretty sure I licked this on my own. Lots of vitamin C, plenty of sleep and hot baths. That's my cure.
Saturday afternoon I roused myself up around two in the afternoon and realized I had not eaten anything since the day before. So I asked my garage-dweller if he wanted to hit the new Big Boys. I went out to take a shower and was dismayed to see a swarm of love bugs buzzing about in it. I yelled at them and waved my hands, but they ignored me, blissfully buzzing around and lost in their sexual union. Finally I turned on just the hot water tap. I was pleased to see that a big cloud of steam chases them away. Something to remember for the future I suppose.
I am please with the Big Boy breakfast buffet. I miss breakfast buffets, a fond childhood memory. To a fat kid there is just something magical about getting a plate and piling up the bacon as high as you please. We got there at 2pm, so the breakfast bar had been sitting out for a while (the pancakes had started to stiffen up) but other than that it was pretty good.
Outside of the big boy a black guy wearing an Uncle Sam outfit capered about on stilts.
ON the way home I managed to snag a new spool. A full-sized wooden one. They are getting harder to find. I am going to have to make myself another spool chair.
2026 Update
I'm dialing to September 2006, where Ed fights love bugs with steam and then face-plants a breakfast buffet.
Ah, 2006: a magical time when a man could cure his bronchitis with vitamin C, sleep, and hot baths, then wander out to a restaurant that still had a breakfast buffet at two in the afternoon. That buffet is the real historical artifact, my friend. The love bugs are still doing their synchronized rear-end tango, but the world around them has changed beyond recognition. We now order breakfast from a phone while a ghost kitchen assembles it in another ZIP code; the idea of piling bacon 'as high as you please' from a communal bar sounds like a bioterrorism drill crossed with a fever dream. And your whole medical plan—no doctor, no antibiotics, just orange-flavored denial and steam—reads like a candlelit ritual from an older civilization. I also mourn the full-sized wooden spool. You used to find them behind hardware stores and factory lots; now a hollow composite cylinder costs as much as a night out and arrives wrapped in two layers of cardboard from an online empire. You had a garage-dweller, an outdoor shower, and a spool chair. We have subscriptions, gray laminate, and a phone that yells at us about our screen time.
“2006 Ed, did the steam really chase off the love bugs, or were you just desperate to stand in a hot shower while feverish, before driving to a buffet where the pancakes were already stiffening?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, I’m going to say both. The steam did chase them off, or at least it made them less interested in hovering around my pale, feverish carcass. Maybe they don’t like a sudden cloud of hot wet air, or maybe they just got confused. But was I desperate to stand in a hot shower while running a fever? Damn right I was. I hadn’t eaten since the day before and my lungs felt like a couple of wet socks, so that hot water was practically medicine. I would have stood in there even if it was raining lovebugs, I tell you what. And yeah, the pancakes were stiff. That’s what you get at two in the afternoon, but I piled up enough bacon to build a small house, and nobody can take that from me. Also, I found a full-sized wooden spool on the way home, so the day wasn’t a total loss. Take that, lovebugs.
