You Cannot Escape From Texas’ Tiniest Little Murdering Insects

I have been bitten and stung by a bunch of different things.

I have been stung 13 times by wasps. I have been stung seven times by scorpions. I never really counted the bee stings, but I just got a weird adrenaline/fear response when I thought about it, so I'm pretty sure those experiences were horrible, though I didn't count them.

I can tell you the difference between a wasp sting and a scorpion sting. I wasp sting feels like a sharp needle is being stuck into you, while a scorpion sting feels like a flat needle is being stuck into you. Both then result in some intense pain, and I have to say that the scorpion sting tended to last a bit longer. I should also mention that I'm talking about the smallish tan scorpions that one finds around wood and rock piles (both places where I "found" them).

Now, that we've set up our poison factories, let's talk about bites. Specifically fire ant bites. Fire ant bits almost seem inconsequential when they happen, but that's when the real pain starts. That bite starts burning after a bit, and rarely do you run into one fire ant. The chances are incredibly high that if you have one fire ant on you, there are a dozen or more you just haven't noticed yet. This means you almost always suffer from multiple bites at one time. For this reason, I can't tell you how many times I've been bitten by fire ants, but it is closer to a hundred than a dozen.

The day after being bitten by a fire ant you'll develop little white pustules/blisters which you're supposed to leave alone, otherwise, you risk infection. The problem is, they itch. Things get worst with some people going into anaphylactic shock. One small study showed that 83 people, including 19 Texans have straight up died due to fire ant bites.

One last word on this topic, some fire ants are tiny at least compared to a regular red ant. This makes almost NO difference and it just makes it harder to realize they're on you. Watch out for ant mounds and trails (and I can also tell you from personal experience that they are very fond of water hoses and electrical cords).