The Verdict is In...

I’m sure you’ve seen the posts on social media this year about a recipe claiming to be an effective mosquito repellant that you spray around the yard and it will ward off the pesky buggers for 80-90 days.

I’m a skeptic by nature, so I didn’t immediately jump on board – partially because for years I’ve been taking 100mg of vitamin B1 daily when I’m going to spend time at the cabin or in other infested areas. And for me, it really works. I rarely get bitten by mosquitoes. However, they still drive me crazy when they are buzzing around the cabin in the night, so I thought I’d give this 90-day remedy a try. (90 days is pretty much the entire summer here in the north.) 

I was especially willing to try it after I read comments from people who heard it on Paul Harvey decades ago and claim they’ve been doing it ever since. If you are too young to immediately know who Paul Harvey is, google “The Rest of the Story” and you’ll see why he sets the standard for news stories that aren’t “Fake News.” 

So I headed to the lake last week after gathering all the supplies: A spray bottle, 3 cups of Epsom salts, 1 litre of cheap blue mouthwash and 3 cans of stale beer. I’m not sure what constitutes “stale” beer, but I opened it and let it sit in a jug for 2 days. 

It took me a couple of days to figure out what the smell reminded me of. I actually really liked it – it was a memory smell for me, and it took me back to my childhood bathroom. I was thinking maybe it smelled of the Poli-dent that my Mama used to clean her removable teeth. But I think it actually smells like a blue powdered toilet bowl cleaner we used in my youth. I can totally picture it in its shaker can, but I can’t recall the name of it. But that’s irrelevant. The point is, this alleged magical compound smells pretty darn good despite its contents. 

I sprayed all around the cabin property, concentrating around the cabin door, windows and the deck. I soaked down our chairs by the fire pit and showered the trees, planters (apparently it’s not harmful to plants) and the picnic table.

We didn’t spend the night but we sat lakeside for a few hours. We really didn’t see any bugs at all. But it was pretty windy, and that usually keeps the bugs at bay, so my skeptic self gave credit to the wind and my hopeful self resisted the urge to shout far and wide the merits of my new found use for beer.

We left town for a few days and it was about a week later when we returned to the cabin for the real test. 

I wasn’t expecting to head out to the lake quite as soon as we did, and in my haste to get ready, I forgot to take my vitamin B. But, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, “Ahh well, with my magical Paul Harvey solution I may never have to pee fluorescent yellow again.” (This is a side effect of taking 100mg of vitamin B) 

It had rained a bit while we were away and I still had ½ a spray bottle of magic, so I gave the backs and bottoms of our chairs another sprinkling as added protection. 

We did some puttering around, thinned out some dead bushes and other assorted cabin-life tasks before pouring a glass of wine to sit by the fire and gaze out at the lake and bask in the blessings of our peaceful corner of paradise. 

And suddenly it was as if a helicopter was taking off from our site, with an almost deafening sound of buzzing and the air swirling violently, due both to flying insect activity and our arms flailing around in attempt to swat away the swarms of mosquitoes, no-see-ums and fish flies. 

I have.never.seen so many bugs at the lake in the six years we have had the cabin. Seriously. 

It was a beautiful windless evening, and yet by 8:30 we were hunkered down in the cabin inhaling 2 burning mosquito coils and watching the sunset through the window. 

So yeah, the verdict is in. 

I’ll be going home to freshen my breath, fill my bathtub and drink the last 3 cans of beer from the 6-pack, while I soak in Epsom salts to try get some relief from these mosquito bites, and contemplate how to get rid of the layer of white salty residue that now graces everything I own at the cabin. 

And now you know the rest of the story.  

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