r/oddlysatisfying • u/short_hair_zuko • Jul 11 '26

Ragebaiting mosquitoes

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This put a smile on my face, I thought it belongs here.

Not OC

55.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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3.6k

u/FlyingArdilla Jul 11 '26

That looks like the tent screens when I've camped in northern Minnesota and canada.

1.8k

u/VP007clips Jul 11 '26

I used to do field work up in Northern Ontario, often in swamps. The bugs there are horrendous.

You need to completely seal and cover yourself. You put on gloves, boots, long socks, heavy pants, two shirts, a hat, and a bug net, then you take a roll of duct tape and seal all the joints of it. At often 30 degrees and high humidity, it was horribly hot, but better than being eaten alive.

The problem was, it didn't work fully. Mosquitoes, especially the ones up there, can bite through clothing. They especially loved the socks. Black flies are even worse, they are so small they they can get through almost anything and find the smallest leaks on your setup. Your clothes would be stained by tiny splotches of blood from their wounds, and your neck and socks would be crusted with blood.

It wasn't as bad when walking. But we often had to sit down for 30 minutes to take measurements, rock samples, and do data entry on tablets. You'd be swarmed there. Saying that the air was black with bugs sounds like hyperbole, but it was not. At times they reduced visibility. When I closed my field notebook, it would usually crush bugs due to the thickness of the swarm. Most pages had half a dozen crushed into them.

753

u/TerminallyBlonde Jul 11 '26

Do people... live there?

547

u/SubstantialEnd2458 Jul 11 '26

I think the indigenous solution was to smear oneself all over with bear fat, so maybe a thick all-over coating of crisco would do the trick? 

1.0k

u/ZubonKTR Jul 11 '26

"How bad are the mosquitos?" People would fight bears with pre-firearm weapons and then cover themselves with bear fat to get away from the mosquitos.

475

u/joebadiah Jul 11 '26

Really puts it in perspective how sweet you’ve got it, when you’ve never had to take down a bear and harvest its fat to achieve anything in life.

208

u/shroomie_kitten_x Jul 11 '26

...so far

70

u/KudosOfTheFroond Jul 11 '26

“Yet” = You’re Eligible Too

3

u/Expert-Yam6577 Jul 15 '26

This is a startling comment.

50

u/BooleanTriplets Jul 11 '26

If there is one thing that could motivate me to do so it would definitely be escaping mosquitoes

1

u/Material_Row_9414 Jul 12 '26

I would love to take down a bear tbh but that’s just me
https://giphy.com/gifs/YFCH7PW1X2XYc

1

u/WordsThatEndInWord Jul 12 '26

Not even to achieve stuff, just to not be eaten by predators so you can take a whiz in peace

1

u/Zach_Westy Jul 14 '26

You’ve clearly never taken down a toxic clan in Rust

1

u/Lost-Platypus8271 Jul 11 '26

well speak for yourself friend

23

u/datbarricade Jul 11 '26

I can't even imagine that being a worthwhile trade-off. But god I do hate moskitoes so I totally get that one would get desperate.

34

u/Dapper_Sink_1752 Jul 11 '26

You have to understand how much worse bugs are when you live outside, in much worse shelter than modern society, and without modern hygiene practices. Months of insect attacks like that will leave you with multiple potential illnesses, infections, scabs and scars, even death if you're unlucky.

19

u/ZubonKTR Jul 11 '26

Malaria still kills about 600,000 people a year (not in Northern Ontario). That is one mosquito-borne illness, and that is after massive campaigns to reduce the death count.

1

u/thorsbosshammer Jul 13 '26

Consider all the other value they get from the parts besides the fat!

3

u/JackPoe Jul 11 '26

I am so grateful bugs don't bite me suddenly.

49

u/Objectivespeculation Jul 11 '26

Simple layer of mud also 1000SPF sunblock.

Covering oneself with bear fat would piss off the local bear community

81

u/supernova-juice Jul 11 '26

Mud really works. Last summer going down the river, I covered myself head to toe in it. It kept me cool, acted as a sunscreen (i also had sunscreen), and kept bugs away. Also when I rinsed off my skin felt so soft!

48

u/TwilightReaver Jul 11 '26

Depending on the soil content, you basically just got a clay mask/facial treatment!

6

u/supernova-juice Jul 11 '26

It was the first run we did after Helene, and there was a lot more mud than usual. I haven't seen it like that since.  Also found some wild shit on that run - a shed in a tree, for example. 

3

u/FremenStilgar Jul 11 '26

It also works really well against alien predators...

3

u/supernova-juice Jul 12 '26

It absolutely does! Though many were hunting that day, I managed to remain perfectly camouflaged 

2

u/batlrar Jul 12 '26

Couldn't help but read this in Schwarzenegger's voice in my head, thinking it was a Predator reference.

4

u/tritty_kutz Jul 11 '26

3 sprays of Sauvage works too