the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

oh spare me.

I'm hanging out at Lisarea's right now, watching a bit of CSI as I surf the web. 
This is the most I watch TV, as most of you know. I just saw a commercial....

Digression: Mother used to say that Noel and I would sit and watch commercials when we were kids, but we'd leave the room during the actual show. I type this as the show goes on. It's clear that my allegiances haven't shifted much.

Anyway. The commercial was about the "perfect" vacation. It shows the happy white couple (does anyone else notice this default? or do we just notice when some company chooses a "brown" couple of some sort?) enjoying the "perfect" vacation. They have a perfect pool, scuba diving if they like, a perfect beach, etc. They're always laughing and smiling, of course.

I propose that the "perfect" vacation is indeed the American dream, but it isn't what we end up enjoying most. I'm thinking of memories here. My best memories--or at least stories--of vacations involve when they weren't perfect. At all.

One of my fondest memories of a vacation gone awry was...Greece. Barb and I went in...hrm. 1998? We had planned to go to Egypt that summer, but I'd happened to pick up a Reader's Digest to read on the plane that had horror stories about a then-practically-unknown person named Osama Bin Laden who'd been behind tourist b kidnappings in Cairo. I decided on the hop across the pond that maybe going to Egypt wouldn't be a good idea that year.

Instead, we went to Greece. Crete, to be specific. Two weeks in paradise, in a hotel on the beach, breakfast and dinner provided.

So what do I remember most about Crete? Mosquitoes.

OK. Maybe not most. But still. This is a big part of my memory. And oddly...one of my fondest. Maybe because it makes a good story.

Crete, see, hasn't invented window screens yet. This wouldn't be a problem, so much, except that only the richest of the rich--jewelry stores spring to mind--have air conditioning. Otherwise...it's hot in your room.

Picture this. The beach is south. The room has window/door openings east/west. Sea breezes are steady blowing north. No air conditioning. No screens.

So what do you think happens with the skeeters? Which are the size of, I'll estimate, hummingbirds.

They do what any organism with half a brain cell under assault would do. They avoid the assault. And HEY! Look at that! Fresh blood.

Closing the windows, btw, is not only ineffective--mosquitoes, as it turns out, are rather thin--but miserable.

We spent our first night with towels snapping them like pros and picking off the mosquitoes who'd clearly thought they'd found room and board, and who were dangling happily on the walls and ceiling. This was not unlike Native Americans trying to fight off Europeans in that there was simply no shortage of supply of the enemy.

I don't remember, but I think we finally grabbed a couple of hours under the sheets, exhausted, sweating profusely and still getting bitten.

Our initial mission was to end this. We went to the store and bought some sort of plug in thingies that were supposed to make them magically go away. It was a ripoff, needless to say. I think the Cretian mosquitoes had developed an immunity.

We gave this a couple of nights to work out. When it didn't, we hit the shops for another cure. We were driven, baby. We selected some other plugin thing. I don't remember the details. I only remember the result. And by that, I mean the lack of result.

After this, I remember asking random people what they do about the mosquitoes in the name of all that's holy. These were Greeks (not Grecians?), and one said, "I just drink ouzo." Ah. Big help there. I'm not sure if he meant that the mosquitoes were no longer interested in the licorice-flavored blood, or if he just got so very drunk that he couldn't tell he was being siphoned.

About two days before the vacation was over, we discovered the key to happiness: a fan.

That's it. A fan. I think it cost something like five drachma a night, which is a pittance. You get a space fan and position directly at you. You're not only cool, but you've created a breeze that mosquitoes are keen to avoid.

So the last night, we were zonked out under the hum of our rented fan, when we were awakened to the sharp voices of the new residents next door. From the accents of the choice words they uttered, we ascertained that they were probably German. We heard the distinctive sound of towels snapping.

We smiled and went back to sleep.

d