I suffered from the one and only Alligator Plague at an
early age. That Alligator Plague was one of the most miserable life events I can
ever recall. This along with getting my hand swept into a cow’s mouth. The cow’s
mouth did not poke holes in my skin the way of the Alligator Plague. Almost
every child gets the Alligator Plague.
The Alligator Plague began with me scratching all over! I could
not stop scratching. The more I scratched, the more the Alligator Plague
showed. Red spots marked my skin from head to toe. I was kept under a cover
away from everybody. The Alligator Plague had struck hard! For days, I scratched.
For days, I was told not to scratch. When a little girl has to scratch her
Alligator bites, no one can be there to tie her hands down night and day. I scratched
those bites as if they had become a daily ritual. Scratching more felt good!
The Alligator Plague was at its peak. The Alligator bites had taken
over my body. No need for Calamine or anti-itching medication at this point. I also
do not believe any home remedy could have cured the Alligator Plague at this
point. My tiny, vulnerable body was a statistic to the Alligator Plague. One in
a million children suffered from the Alligator Plague world-wide. The Alligator
Plague had struck.
The itching continued. The scratching did not ease up. I was a bad
child. I did not know how to get rid of these Alligator bites. This remedy was
not simple as pouring sweet pickle juice over my face to cure freckles in the summertime.
I could not poach the Alligator bites on a hot stove to de-sensitize the itch. I
could not swim across an ocean to lose the Alligator bites at sea. Would this
have been fair to the aquatic animals? I could not pour baking soda on the
Alligator bites. I simply could not get rid of this annoying itching business!
As the days passed, the Alligator Plague got to the point that I did
not want to be itching anymore. Imagine turning five with having Alligator bites all over! Classmates would
have understood. Adults would not have. The Alligator Plague is only for
children! Adults have learned the remedy of the Alligator Plague. Their wisdom
skips children. Children can itch, scratch, itch, and scratch until the
Alligator bites appear. Children wait anxiously for the Alligator bites to
disappear.
As an adult, I do not hear
about the Alligator Plague much. Since I am not around children much, I am not
aware if this still happens. i do not post this plague to my timeline on
Facebook. I do not tell many people about getting the Alligator Plague. The
Alligator Plague hit me hard as a child. I had Alligator marks all over my body
that can still be thoughtful shameful in modernism. Without falling victim to the
Alligator Plague, I would not be writing this today. The Alligator Plague and I
sure did have our daily battles the way Edmund Burke and Mary Wollstonecraft
fought over the education of women and Ezra Pound fought over Imagism with Amy
Lowell in 1835. The Alligator Plague seemed to win at times. The itching was a
vile and toxic part of my young existence in a world that was not shaped for
the Alligator Plague. The little girl did not fall for the itching after days
of peaceful harmony the way Alfred Lord Tennyson changed his literary expression
style to suit the harsh literary critic, John Stuart Mills.
Before, in between, and after the Alligator Plague, I thought and
behaved like a child. The Alligator Plague did not rob me of my innocence. The Alligator
Plague did not land me in the hospital. The Alligator Plague tempted me into
the childhood sin of scratching uncontrollably. The Alligator’s jaws became
shut as the days passed. The Alligator no longer struck hard or at all. This liberated me as a small child. I no
longer felt empowered by something I could not control about my body.
Why am I sharing my experience of the Alligator Plague? I believe
the Alligator needs to be set free back into the wild. After thirty three years
of hiding the Alligator Plague, parents can be aware of my experience. Every Alligator
belongs in his or her natural habitat. When an Alligator is taken out of the
wild, its teeth will strike. The Alligator is confused, upset, and does not know
how to behave well in society. This makes an Alligator bite the innocent, sweet
skin of small children. Children do not know how to run from the Alligator
Plague. The only way a child knows how to survive the Alligator bite is to
scratch after itching. Until Alligators are able to remain in their natural
habitats, children will continue to suffer from the Alligator Plague.
The Alligator Plague sounds perilously close to Chicken Pox, which I experienced as a 5yo child, my mother put large mittens over my hands, gave me Benadryl and put calamine lotion on me in an attempt to keep me from scratching where it itched….with limited effectiveness. Chicken Pox is caused by Varicella Zoster virus and is mercifully short lived….however it can come back later in life as Herpes Zoster, which causes Shingles. Evidently the earlier virus lives on in nerve tissue and can later attack you, especially folks over 50. Your blog brought back some very early memories to me. Keep up the good work.
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