San Francisco - Palace of Fine Arts/Exploratorium

San Francisco - Ocean Beach

Sleeping Isn’t Walking

For the last few months, I have been renting a room in Bernal Heights. I got a great deal (by San Francisco standards anyhow.) For $600 a month, I get a virtually empty 4 bedroom house with hardwood floors, a washer and dryer in the basement and an upright downstairs. Of course, it was known to me that I would have to move out by October 1st, which is now quickly approaching.

Though I have been preparing for my move, taking great advantage of the two remaining weeks, everything changed on Saturday. While opening my bedroom door, three mice (no, for the five billionth time, they were NOT blind) scurried across the floor. Now, we have had mice in the downstairs portion of the house the entire time I have been there, which did not bother me TOO much. However, the thought of these dirty animals crawling across my face or into my shoes at night is unbearable.

My dearest friend, Ian, sent me an email which contained writing that Kafka did when he too experienced these unwanted pests. I greatly dread sleeping in my room for two more nights, jamming a towel under my door as I enter and leave the room. Kafka (Ian) have made this experience much less miserable.

Kafka: letter to Felix Weltsch, mid-November 1917

Dear Felix, the first great flaw of Zurau: a night of mice, a frightening experience. I am unscathed and my hair is no whiter than yesterday, but it was the most horrifying thing in the world. For some time now I've heard them here and there (my writing is continually interrupted, you'll soon see why), every now and then at night I've been hearing a soft nibbling, once I even got out of bed, trembling, to take a look, and then it stopped at once----but this time it was an uproar. What a dreadful, mute, and noisy race. At two I was awakened by a rustling near my bed and it didn't let up from then until morning. Up the coal box, down the coal box, crossing the room diagonally, running in circles, nibbling the woodwork, whistling softly when not moving, and all the while the sensation of silence, of the clandestine labor of an oppressed proletarian race to whom the night belongs.

After that first night, no matter to whom he was writing, Kafka spoke of mice. The subject lent itself to endless variations, all the more so when Kafka introduced, in self-defense, the presence of a cat, which raised further questions:

I can drive the mice away using the cat, but then how will I drive the cat away? Do you imagine you have nothing against mice? Naturally, you don't have anything against cannibals either, but if at night they crept out from under all the cupboards gnashing their teeth, you surely couldn't bear them any longer. Anyway, I'm now trying to harden myself, observing the field mice on my walks; they're not so bad, but my room isn't a field and sleeping isn't walking.

Hurts So Good

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index or The Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index is a scale rating the relative pain caused by different Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist for whom the index is named. Schmidt has published a number of papers on the subject and claims to have been stung by the majority of stinging Hymenoptera.

His original paper in 1984 was an attempt to systematise and compare the hemolytic properties of insect venoms. The index contained in the paper started from 0 for stings that are completely ineffective against humans, progressed through 2, a familiar pain such as a common bee or wasp sting, and finished at 4 for the most painful stings. In the conclusion, some descriptions of the most painful examples was given, eg: "Paraponera clavata stings induced immediate, excruciating pain and numbness to pencil-point pressure, as well as trembling in the form of a totally uncontrollable urge to shake the affected part."

Subsequently, Schmidt has refined his scale, culminating in a paper published in 1990 which classifies the stings of 78 species and 41 genera of Hymenoptera. Notably, Schmidt described some of the experiences in vivid and colorful detail:

• 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
• 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
• 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
• 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
• 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
• 2.x Honey bee and European hornet.
• 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
• 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
• 4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric.
• 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.