Hordes desire my body, crave me, and would devour me entirely.
Sadly, I’m talkin’ ’bout mosquitoes. For some reason, my entire life, they’ve swarmed me. At outdoor dinner parties, I am feasted upon more than the buffet. Somehow, everyone else is passed over as they chow down on my calves like corn on the cob. Afterward, I look like I have the plague. I scratch so much I’m envious of Freddy Krueger’s razor-blade fingers. I’d almost rather endure pain than itch.
But after years of wondering why I am a five-foot-seven-inch piece of bread pudding stuffed into a human suit, I’ve lucked into a break. Aerin Lauder sent me a basket of goodies from her eponymous brand, including her Wild Geranium fragrance. I chucked it into a summer bag and happened upon it at my parents’ place by the beach. I did that thing you learn about in seventh grade—spritz grandly into the air and walk into the scent cloud. Completely enveloped, I went on my way to attend a swamp-adjacent barbecue.
At outdoor dinner parties, I am feasted upon more than the buffet.
The place was teeming with skeeters, but, by some miracle, I was spared even a single chomp. Meanwhile, all the other guests—every single one—were slapping their body parts in a useless quest to quash the bloodsuckers. Why was I spared? And then it dawned on me. Once, when I was staying at a hotel in Italy, some kind staffer who felt my bug-inflicted pain came to my table with a basket of geranium-scented wipes. Aerin’s perfume must somehow smell like a sewage plant to insects! Eureka! Yes, it’s 43,213 times pricier than Off. But it smells great, and it doesn’t require me to baste myself in noxious chemicals. Hooray!
Now that I’ve cracked this pest code, I shall spread the geranium-infused news. So pull on your short shorts, and have no fear. Spritz easily and often so that those winged assholes don’t even think about making trouble. Now, this is probably not what Aerin was going for when she came up with the fragrance, but as with champagne and Viagra, some great discoveries happen by accident.
Jill Kargman is the author of Sprinkle Glitter on My Grave and Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut. She also created and starred in the Peacock series Odd Mom Out
