Muggy.
The only way to describe it....
"Oh, it's HOT in Seoul," I was warned, "Are you sure you can handle it?"
Uh, YEAH. I am from the junction of The Kaw and the Missouri, August is hotter than two rats, er, um, mating in a burlap sack (as Ichiro says. well, in not those words, but you get the gist).
It's approaching August and it feels like Possum Trot (Brown Ale is on my mind today......) and your shirt sticks to your back and the 'Vinyl Seat Warnings' are out. How do I know they are 'Vinyl Seat Warnings'? Because in any language, a scream is a scream is a scream.
Then.
I heard it.
The low buzz of a machine.....Was it the North deciding their time was right? I made a dash to the window, expecting a squadron of Bi-Planes--They are up-to-date in the North--flying in V formation.
Nothing.
"Where is My Mind?" by the Pixies is blasting, kind of appropriate. Where is my duffel bag is more like it.....
I rush to the other side of the building, seeing nothing.
It's here, I thought, it's really here.
What do I grab? Um, pictures, um, iPod, you know, stuff that can't be replaced.
It's getting louder.
"WE'RE DOOMED!!!!!!" I scream, in English AND Spanish. Why Spanish? Because I find myself responding to Koreans in Spanish, it's the only other foreign (and NATIVE) language I can speak.
I am shaking like Larry Johnson at the thought of Priest Holmes actually making the team, making his contract demands seem silly.
The Embassy, WHERE'S the Embassy?!?!?!?!?!
I am envisioning the last helicopter out of Saigon.
Yes, I remember, but I am not that old, dangit.
I have my two duffel bags packed, my backpack on, 17 plastic bags full of stuff I have accumulated. Beer mugs, ashtrays, chopsticks, empty beer bottles, my 5,000 tablet bottle of Tums, an empty Tuaca bottle (thanks, Stella), 4 bottles of Soju, and 5 Xanax (left behind by the previous tenant).
I am ready.
I look out the sliding window and there is a cloud of smoke rising from the street, 150 meters below.
ARRRRRRRGH!!
I am not fast enough.
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!
My neighbors are looking at me like I am a crazy foreigner. No comments, please.
I am sweating like Mike Sweeney at the thought of being in the lineup today.
Out of breathe, I look around.
No one is panicking.
Lemmings!!!!! ALL of YOU!!!!
Then the smoke takes over the building.
Wait.
The buzzing has subsided, but I can still hear it.
EEEEEEEWWWWW!!!!!
The taste. I am ready for the deep breath which will put me out of my misery
What does this taste like???? It's not tear gas----don't ask how I know the taste of that.
Nor is it Mustard Gas. I have read enough Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon to understand the taste of it.
It, it, it, tastes like............BUG SPRAY!!!!
Ortho, to be exact.
You know, when your mom or dad hands you the Ortho bottle and tells you to spray down the yard? AND you happen to stand in the wind and get a mouth full of it? C'MON, you know what I am talking about.
Now I am afraid I might become sterile---NO COMMENTS.
Or that an offspring might have 3 eyes and 14 toes--MY FAULT, Stella.
Or I might lose MORE hair.
Or might become addicted.
Ortho is cheap in the States, isn't it?

OK.
Now the explanation of this all.
At least once a week, a truck goes up and down the streets filling it with bug smoke (as I like to call it) to eradicate the mosquitoes. It only partially works. I spend my nights chasing them around my apartment. They are everywhere and they can get REALLY big and nasty. They hurt. This 'smoke' helps control the population of the the spider's meal. In other neighborhoods, children are seen running directly behind the smoke truck and running through the smoke.
And I'M worried......

So, no invasion, yet and I am safe and, er, sound.
If you care......