Gnat Worth Worrying About

(I have just moved back from a different city and in with my family. My family thinks that my old place was infested with bugs because they saw one once.)

Brother: “Yeah, [My Name], I don’t know how you lived over there. It was nasty and bugs were everywhere. Not here, though. We spray.”

(Later, I go to my new bedroom to sleep. A few hours later, I feel something that I can only describe as a vicious bite to my foot.)

Me: “Omigod, ow, ergh!”

(I feel my foot, but I find nothing weird. I decide that I was dreaming and go back to sleep, though with pain, but I hope it’ll pass soon. The next morning my whole foot is fat and puffy and fiery red, with marks on the top of it.)

Me: *running out* “Look! You guys have bugs in here! My foot is all red! Something bit me!”

(My family is the sort that unless you’re missing a limb or something they won’t even care, but they take one look at my oozing, inflamed foot and freak out.)

Dad: “Omigod! I’ll look for the bugs!”

Brother: “Go to the hospital. You’ve got a reaction to something! It’s serious; your foot is NOT supposed to be like that!!”

(They calmed down after a while. Turned out, a biting gnat or two had bit my foot so viciously that I had a severe allergic reaction to it, even though I’ve been bitten by gnats before and never had a reaction. It took three weeks for my foot to return to normal, and I still have the marks where I was bitten. It was hard to go to work because my work requires socks and shoes, and it got so itchy that I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to scratch it.)