Urine for a treat

First things first. M is boring. The name, not the man (most of the time). M lacks depth, character and creativity, and I consider it an oversight on my part that I even started referring to him in that way. From now on, I will refer to him as "Mr. Kate," a much more accurate title. I on the other hand, will dispense with such formalities and remain, simply, Kate.

This weekend the temperature in DC was about 106, with about a million percent humidity, so Mr. Kate and I decided to head out of town for the weekend and play in Shenandoah National Park, where it was a little cooler.

Saturday morning, we started the day by driving along the breathtakingly beautiful Skyline Drive. Mr. Kate was driving, I was reclined with my feet and hand hanging just outside of the open window, and slobber was splashing around and along the back of the car as the dogs' tongues were blown around by the rush of the cool mountain air pouring into the car.

Suddenly something smacked the bottom of the toes on my right foot. I immediately thought of the time the vet told me not to let the dogs stick their heads out the window, so they wouldn't get hit in the eye with a bug and go blind. Yeah, right, like that happens. But it was a big bug that hit me, and maybe I was beginning to see his point. As I reached to pull the bug out from behind my toes, my entire foot started pulsating with pain. I panicked. I grabbed my foot and pulled it into the car, screaming. Mr. Kate had no idea what was going on, and I did not have the willpower or motivation to stop screaming, so upon his third inquiry I thrust my foot in his face to help him understand my predicament.

"Well, flick it off!" he yelled. I stayed there, screaming and staring at him, frozen in fear. Why would a bug hurt so bad? Something was wrong. I was dying. It was a death bug.

"I can't do anything, I'm driving!" he yelled as we rounded another turn and the dogs started to try and climb in the front seat, since there was obviously a lot of fun and excitement happening up there.

"I can't either!" I managed to squeak out, in what I was sure was my last breath with a functional foot.

Then, while driving, my wonderful husband reached over, pushed the dogs out of the way and flicked the bug of death through my toes, freeing it from my contracted, pedial grasp.

We both exhaled, Mr. Kate resumed his grasp of the steering wheel and the dogs returned to the back of the car and into their slobber-spraying positions. As I started to express my deep love for my husband, my life and my foot, the top of my toes started to melt with pain. The insect of terror had made it through my toes, onto the top of my foot. Again, I began to scream. Surely this bug had given me toe ebola. It was spreading fast- and it HURT. This time Mr. Kate wasted no time, he leaned over and started slapping my foot like a sorority girl in a cat fight. You go girlfriend.

All of a sudden it was done. The insect was gone. Mr. Kate made a remark about how the perpetrator was probably just a deer fly as he pulled off to the side of the road and I pretended not to hear him. As he came to a stop, I opened the door, rolled out of the car and lay on the ground holding my foot in the air while groaning in pain. Mr. Kate called it dramatic. I called it necessary.

We are in a fight, wasp.

Mr. Kate retrieved the arthropod of destruction from the car floor. It was a yellow jacket wasp. It had stung me four times all together. I remained on the ground writhing in pain (still necessary), hoping the gods of wasp venom might have some pity on me soon.

Mr. Kate went to the car and sacrificed the last of his Mountain Dew to give me some ice. For those of you who know Mr. Kate, you know that that is true love. He started mumbling to himself about home remedies from when he was a kid. Suddenly he stopped. "If we put some meat tenderizer on it, it'll take the sting away!" he exclaimed, brilliantly.

"Okay, gimme some," I mumbled.

"Oh, I don't have any," he promptly replied.

"I know we don't, Mr. Kate! We are vegetarians in the middle of a national park! Why the hell would we have meat tenderizer?!"

He looked away, realizing that had not been his finest idea. 

We sat in silence, interjected by an occasional whimper from me, while I iced my foot.

"You know how urine helps jellyfish stings?" I began. "What if you peed on my foot?"

"I'm not sure if that will help, and why wouldn't you just pee on your own foot?" Mr. Kate responded.

"Because it's physics, Mr. Kate! I can't pee on my own foot! And you wouldn't let me buy a Go Girl the last time I saw them at REI, which would have completely facilitated the my-own-urine-on-my-own-foot situation. This is your fault. So start peeing."

Who wouldn't want this?

"There is something wrong with you. Are you serious? Do you actually want me to pee on your foot? You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah, I'm kidding. That'd be gross. Ew." But I wasn't kidding. I wanted some pee on my foot. Stat. For reals. Anything to help. It hurt that bad. 

We sat there in silence while I iced my foot a while longer. Eventually, Mr. Kate wandered off into the woods to pee. I wanted to follow him and plead with him, "Please pee on my foot! I'll do anything! Just a little bit, I'll never ask again!" But that would've been awkward.