I’m not the type that gets easily skeeved out by bugs or critters. That was never an option for me growing up in Florida in the Boy Scouts where we’d take camping trips to the Everglades and the Florida Keys and the mosquitoes would get so thick around street lamps in the camping grounds that they’d legitimately black out the light.
I also split my childhood by spending a ton of time in The Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York where the black fly bites get so bad that they’ll make you look like an Olympics athlete who underwent that ‘cupping’ procedure that leaves circles all over your body. I shit you not, 4 or 5 years ago I went fishing for brook trout and got bitten up so badly that 10 days later when I went to get a haircut the barber asked me if I was suffering from some sort of a skin condition and if he should be careful. I still think about that and cringe every time I get a haircut.
Still, this MASSIVE swarm of mayflies in Lousiana looks like it’s straight out of a horror film. This is enough to freak ANYONE out, regardless of whether or not you’re not bothered by bugs and critters. This person couldn’t even fill up at the gas pump because the mayflies were so thick:
Mayflies by The tens of thousands attack a Slidell area convenience store day or night. Taking a look at the reasons why pic.twitter.com/vM7qv0t3nY
— Rob Masson (@robmassonfox8) May 29, 2018
Instead of getting out of the car to try and fill up with the swarming mayflies the driver decided to risk it, and drive on fumes to the next gas station instead of having these mayflies fly up every crack of his body:
he swarm of mayflies Slidell, La. resident Hickman encountered Monday night at a gas station along MIlitary Road was so big, he thought better of getting out of his car. He preferred coasting on fumes to the next station to ending up with the little buggers “in my mouth, up my nose,” he told WWLTV.
“There were so many of them,” he told the station. “I’ve never seen that many swarm.” (via Star-Telegram)
It can get worse, however. This Nat Geo Wild video from 2012 shows just how extreme the mayfly swarm can get on the Mighty Mississippi:
Hell to the NOPE.