The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Scientists this past week declared that a bacteria was found in this country totally resistant to antibiotics. Great news if you’re an e-coli bacteria, not so good if you’re a human being. For decades we’ve treated chickens and pigs and turkeys and hypochondriac homo sapiens with antibiotics, giving out tetracycline and every other antibiotic like candy, never figuring the little bugs would adapt to this, despite the fact that they breed like … well, bacteria. In 1928 when Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin would kill the little buggers, it heralded in a new age of medicine.

Ninety years later, well, we got a brand new age of medicine. For almost a century we could control everything from staph to tuberculosis. Not bad for us humanoids. But the microscopic monsters were slowly working out defenses to our gigantic big brained discoveries. And now they’ve beaten us. We got a little complacent this time, and instead of using this miracle drug to cure diseases for us humans, we found we could make chickens grow big, salmon grow bigger and pigs grow to the size of tractor trailers. We could give patients the stuff when the doctors knew it wouldn’t do anything more than shut them up, a pill or two as placebo, maybe it would keep them from coming back when the viral infection ran its natural course. The pharmaceutical conglomerates sure didn’t mind.

We all grew up, I guess, thinking there was a pill for pretty much everything that ails us. We might’ve been alarmed when something like a flesh eating bacteria or HIV rolled in, some bug that we’d never imagined, something that would kill us for sure, our very own Black Plague. Course, we could always find a cure we figured. We could make a vaccine or discover a new antibiotic. Science, it’s on our side.

Now it looks like all bets are off. Unless you’re betting on the bugs. Or you were investing in Big Pharma stocks. Might be a good time to double down on health care stocks instead, not that being rich is gonna do us much good when the epidemics come….

Last time we talked about Colton Harris Moore, he was cooling his heels in the federal pen and trying to raise money to chill his mom before she died of cancer, well, freeze his mom before she died of cancer. I think in most states this would qualify as murder, but … this is the South End. Life isn’t quite as precious as other places so the options look better, even what to some might seem cruel and capricious, we see as opportunity.

The Kid raised $80,000 before his mom died. That’s not half bad for a month’s worth of internet fundraising. For freezing his dear old mother. You might be asking yourself, like me, who in the name of Einstein is throwing money at the boy for a cryogenic solution that is, at best, quackery for the rich? I offered up my unused freezer, but cash? — I don’t think so. Maybe if it was for Albert himself or Mother Theresa, but Colton’s mom??? I don’t want to appear heartless, but c’mon, she was not someone you would want to bring back to this mortal coil. No way.

It’s scary enough Colton wanted to freeze his ma and hope to bring her back when science had found a way to thaw her without freezer burn. You know, when we’d cured cancer and poisonous personality. But scarier yet are all these folks willing to donate to the cause. There are legitimate causes out there, everything from curing Alzheimers to diabetes. But freezing an old irascible woman? The very same woman who could be the poster for Bad Motherhood? C’mon.

Colton gets out of prison soon, having paid for his crimes with his time. I know a lot of folks are worried what he’ll do with his life. Whether he’ll turn over a new leaf. Whether he’ll rehab into a model citizen, get a job, settle down, marry, have kids, become a productive member of society. I think we can all quit wringing our hands over this kid. He’s going to do just fine as a fundraiser. The real question, I suppose, is whether he’ll do it legitimately or as a flim flammer. Either way, he’s got the skillset.

I was downtown the other day doing my weekly errands off-island when some Good Samaritan hustled across the gas station parking lot to tell me my hat looked like it was on its last legs and if I needed a fresh one, he knew a great place to pick one up cheap. This is a bit like the fella that asks the woman in front of him in the checkout line when her due date is … only to learn she’s not pregnant, just overweight.

A lesser man mighta taken umbrage. A lesser man mighta even been embarrassed that his sombrero looked like a scarecrow’s castoff. But I said I thought maybe my hat would last a few days longer, thanks for the concern. He didn’t seem to pick up on my subtle clues that perhaps I liked this old hat and wasn’t much interested in replacing it with some storebought doppleganger despite the fact that it would look brand spanking new. And clean. And presentable. Make a new man of its wearer. Give off a right smart image. You know, like I was a Nashville recording artist on vacation.

“They got all kinds,” he insisted. “Cheap ones too. Even though they got some real expensive ones.” I think he picked right up on the fact I didn’t look like someone who would pay $500 for a Borsalino rabbit pelt fedora. My Borsalino I found in a thrift store for two bucks, already nicely worn, comfortable as, well, an old hat.

“Right up the road,” he assured me. “Hundreds of hats. You could get a new one like yours for ten dollars.”

“A new one wouldn’t be like mine,” I said, getting a little tired of my haberdashery missionary’s unsolicited zeal. It takes some careful aging to get a hat into the condition mine was in. I said, “I notice you don’t wear one yourself. A hat, I mean.” At this, my benefactor backed up a step or two. “If it was sunny today, I might,” he explained awkwardly. “I got a straw hat like yours I wear if it’s sunny.”

I wanted to tell him if he had one like mine, I knew where he could get a better one. Instead I just thanked him for his referral. “When this one dies, I’ll give the place a look-see,” I said. I figure maybe in a few years, then I’ll go check the Goodwill. Guys like me, it’s always sunny enough to wear a well-worn hat.

Dormant Butt Syndrome occurs when the gluteus maximus muscles are not functioning properly, heaping strain on other parts of the body.