I was just trying to take out the trash this morning. I have to do it in the morning, because I do NOT want to meet the white-striped neighbors in the process, and that's a whole lot more likely at dusk or during the evening. So now I have NEW neighbors to worry about.

I didn't see them until I was in the middle of them, and by then it was too late. That's probably a slight variation on the first line of the script for every horror movie ever made. But they weren't horrible, just weird. Tiny green specks suddenly fluttered in random swirly paths in every direction. Now I know what the nucleus of an atom must feel like.

These are tear-shaped pale green gnatoids of some kind with transparent wings half again the length of their eighth-inch-long bodies. And they're everyfuckingwhere. Plump little devils, they squish in a very squishy way -- something I didn't want to know at first. But my waving just seemed to add energy to their party, and they rode my turbulence without a problem, still rushing up to make my acquaintance. It's been really dry lately, although yesterday was more humid than usual. Maybe that brought the little flying bags of water out of the vegetation.

Back in the house, I had no choice but to institute a policy of ruthless extermination against the tenacious bastards, unless I wanted to feel their tiny toes tripping lightly over my skin for the rest of my life -- or their lives, probably, as I doubt these are creatures of especially elaborate fates. So I'm just about done slapping at myself, and the green swarm is pretty much abated. Damned if I'm going out the back gate again before I have to, though. Sheesh.