Science and the natural world offer us opportunities to experience a range of sensations -- some of them deeply unpleasant. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share stories about some less than pleasant moments.
Part 1: While staying with a host family in an unfamiliar city for a conference, Andrew Spink wakes up to find he can’t swallow.
Andrew Spink is a storyteller. Through his work as an author, solo-show performer, comedian, and public speaker, he curates journeys through the human experience that examine our beliefs, tickle our sense of wonder, and spur us on toward meaningful living. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters, where he feels guilty for not being outdoorsy, avoids coffee while frequenting cafes, and walks his dog to fit in with the crowd.
Part 2: Distracted by thoughts of his career, entomologist Ralph Washington, Jr. gets swarmed by mosquitos.
Ralph Washington, Jr. has been a devoted student of insects since his early childhood. Insects have taught him that the smallest creatures can often help answer the biggest questions. One of his favorite lessons is the reminder that although life can often be hard, at least he isn’t a termite getting paralyzed by a toxic fart. You can learn more about his work at ralphwashingtonjr.com.
Episode Transcript
Part 1
It's my first time in the city of Oakland and everything feels strange. Confusing, like I'm out of place. I'm here attending a conference for the outreach non‑profit that I work for. And despite getting on a flight at 6:00 AM out of Des Moines, Iowa and rushing through traffic to get here, I'm energized and I'm excited that I'm here.
It's one of those conferences where you can stay with a host family instead of paying for the Four Seasons. I thought this would be a good chance to use my communication skills and do some community outreach so I accepted the housing.
Andrew Spink shares his story at Jewelbox Theater in Seattle, WA in March 2023. Photo by Elizar Mercado.
Now, the welcome dinner is finishing up and it's time to meet our hosts. Oh, that dinner was fantastic. The most tender and juicy sirloin I'd ever tasted, smooth mashed potatoes, a slice of garlic bread that had been baked with so much butter you could almost wring it out.
As I finish eating, one of the organizers walks me over to the man behind the grill who goes by Bob. He, along with his wife and teenage daughter would be hosting me.
Bob looked to be about in mid 50s. He was short and thin, had a jet black hair and kind eyes behind his glasses.
I look at Bob and I say, “That was the best steak I'd ever tasted.” And his daughter said that he doesn't speak English.
On the drive to their house, she explained to me that they had just moved to the US from China two years ago and that though that her parents understood English, they only spoke Mandarin.
She gave me a brief tour of their small two‑bedroom home and blushed as she said that I'd be sleeping in her bedroom while she slept in with her parents. Breakfast would be at 8:00 AM.
As I fell asleep under flower‑print sheets surrounded by posters of One Direction, I felt disappointed. I had looked forward to getting to know my host family. I had imagined that we would grow a friendship over late night conversations and become such good friends that they would come visit me in Iowa. In future years, we'd go on vacations together. But, instead, I'd be spending three nights with people I can't even communicate with.
Just after midnight, something jerks me awake. I can't swallow. My throat had been swelling up in my sleep. After a few moments of confusion, I decide I'm having an allergic reaction to something, but I'd never had an allergic reaction to anything in my life.
Our bodies have specific cells that their job is to investigate any substance that comes into our body and decide whether or not they're a threat. And when they mislabel something as a threat, that's an allergy. Those cells go into overdrive and they create a specific immunoglobulin that can detect where all the cells of that specific threat are in our bodies, whether they're a pollen or a tree nut. Then it teaches all the rest of our cells how to create the antibodies to defeat the threat.
Along the way, our cells create all of this histamine which leads to the runny nose and itchy eyes and sneezing and, in some cases, anaphylaxis, which is what I was experiencing.
By 12:30, I know I need to get to a hospital but the question is how. I'm in a foreign city. I don't have a car. I don't even know where the hospital is and there's no way I'm going to go bombard into this sleeping family's room and wake them up.
So I throw on some clothes and I go out to the kitchen to think things through. My mouth is producing so much extra saliva to try and deal with the situation, but I can't swallow any of it. So I'm leaning over the kitchen sink, my mouth just hanging open, drooling a constant river into the sink. I can breathe but my breaths are short and shallow. I'm panicking and I'm panicking more and more and more.
Andrew Spink shares his story at Jewelbox Theater in Seattle, WA in March 2023. Photo by Elizar Mercado.
Then the thought hits me. I'm going to die. Not just that, but I'm going to die like this, drooling in some stranger's kitchen in a foreign city and no one's going to find my body till morning.
And then I think, “No, no, I can't die because I don't want to miss out on more delicious meals like we had at the conference today,” and that thought gives me almost enough courage to go barge into their room and wake them up.
But just at that moment, the door to the garage opens and Bob walks into the house carrying three bags of groceries. Now, for the life of me, I don't know why Bob chose the middle of the night as the time to go get groceries when everybody else is sleeping but I don't care. I'm just so damn thankful I don't have to wake up some strangers.
Now, I can't talk so I can't communicate to Bob what's going on. So I start moaning and sort of pantomiming that I'm choking by doing the choking sign around my neck which, in retrospect, may not have been the best idea. If you think about it from his perspective, you come home from your grocery shopping at 1:00 AM and you find a total stranger just spitting into your sink. And then when he sees you, he turns to you with this intense, fiery life‑and‑death look in his eyes, takes two steps toward you and then starts pantomiming a choking motion.
He drops the three bags of groceries and pulls out his cell phone and I'm sure he's calling the cops. But after a moment, he puts his phone on speaker and he starts speaking in Mandarin to the phone, but the voice on the phone is responding in English and it's talking to me.
I can't talk back. I'm just moaning and more drooling, but eventually I hear the voice say, “Don't worry. It's okay. Go with Bob. He's going to take you to the hospital.”
I follow Bob out into the garage and into the pickup truck and he drives me to the ER. And the entire trip to the hospital, I'm just drooling down the front of my shirt worrying about ruining the interior of the cab of his truck and wondering about this stranger who's driving me. I mean, he acted without hesitation in the midst of a very odd situation. He remained completely calm. he acted decisively and quickly.
As I watched his face as he's driving, my panic eased just slightly.
At the ER, I do my pantomime moaning routine for the nurse that's checking us in and she barely looks up at my house and says, “Relationship to patient?” Bob and I just look at each other and shrug.
Within a few minutes, I'm in a hospital gown. I'm on a medical table and I'm waiting for the doctor to come in. It's just me and my host dad sitting next to me. Our eyes lock for a moment but his eyes say a lot in that moment. Something like, “Don't worry. It's gonna be okay. I'm right here.” I try to say thanks with mine.
The doctor comes in and can see that I can't talk very well so he just takes over the situation. He says, “It looks like you're having an allergic reaction to something. I'm gonna put this cream in your mouth and it's going to help take the swelling down and then we'll talk through what happened.”
The only problem is that the cream, when the cream goes on my tongue I lose all feeling in my tongue. So the swelling does go down. I can start to breathe a little bit easier, I can swallow, but my tongue is completely and utterly numb.
The doctor asks me what I'm allergic to and I respond, “[garbled] I'm not allergic to anything. I’ve no allergy whatsoever.”
He tries again. “Okay, what did you have for dinner?”
“[garbled] Oh, steak and potato and garlic bread…”
And he's, “I'm useless.” I'm trying to describe all the foods I had for dinner, the delicious foods all of which I'd had hundreds of times and I'd never had an allergic reaction to.
My host then hands me a piece of paper and a pen and I think, “Where did you get a piece of paper and a pen?” But it's really helpful because now I can write down all the answers to the doctor.
So I write down all the foods that I had for dinner and then the doctor points at the word ‘steak’ on the paper and he says, “How was the steak prepared?”
So I write down, “Medium.”
Andrew Spink shares his story at Jewelbox Theater in Seattle, WA in March 2023. Photo by Elizar Mercado.
Then he goes, “No, not how was it prepared. How did they prepare it?”
I shrug and I look at Bob who was behind the grill and Bob's already got his cell phone out and it's on speakerphone and he's talking in Mandarin and the voice on the speakerphone is responding in English again. And the voice tells us that, for the entire morning, the steak had been laid in kiwi to soften before being grilled.
Without hesitation, the doctor says, “Well, son, congratulations. You're allergic to kiwi, and probably a few other stone fruits as well. How did you not know this?”
And I go, “[garbled] I don't eat fruit like ever. I don't eat fruit.”
He shrugs and tells the nurse to give me a steroid and tells me to avoid kiwi at all costs.
“And it's a good thing you came in when you did. Your throat was almost swollen shut.”
On the drive back home, I'm swallowing over and over again because it feels so weird and liberating. I'm also thinking about how lucky I am to be alive. How fortunate I am to have my host dad walk in the door at that very moment to save me.
By the time we get back to the house, it's 3:00 AM and Bob looks exhausted. I help him put the groceries away and the cream is wearing off of my tongue so I can finally speak. I take a step back and look at him right in the eyes and they're full of compassion. I say, “Thank you for saving my life.”
And he smiles and he squeezes my arm and then he disappears into his bedroom.
Thank you.
Part 2
Okay. It's late spring in 2012. I'm two years out of my bachelor's degree and I'm working for a small company that tests insect repellents. I'm driving a large white cargo van filled with equipment I'm headed to a field site in Western Nevada. I'm driving alone because I need time with my thoughts. Right now, I'm thinking about leaving the career that I've wanted since I was eight years old, when insects first stoked the fire of my curiosity.
I grew up in a rough neighborhood. It didn't have a lot of nature, but it did have a lot of vacant lots. And vacant lots are a fantastic place to find insects. When I found them in a vacant lot near my house, I realized that you can find wondrous things in even the bleakest of places. And ever since, I assumed that I'd spend my life studying the six‑legged.
Yet, I'm working with chemicals that keep insects away and many of them seem like they're just a jump from being true insecticides. Lately, I've struggled to decide on a disciplinary focus and a lot of the advice I've received has been pretty discouraging.
Ralph Washington Jr. shares his story at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA in February 2023. Photo by Exploratorium.
I've been told that I need to choose a practical discipline. Many of the suggestions have been depressingly mechanistic. How can I find the wonder that I long for as a child?
As I travel over the scenic features of Sierra Nevada, I deeply contemplate the rise and fall of the various peaks in my life. The field site is a snowmelt‑saturated marsh at about 5000 feet above sea level. It's decorated with hearty shrubs and short trees and framed by beautiful geology.
I get there in the late morning because I expect to be there for at least 12 hours. And after a long time on the road, I am eager to stretch my legs.
So, I swing open the door. I hop off the driver's seat and I take a deep breath of crisp mountain air when my ears register the insect equivalent of Ride of the Valkyries. That's right I hear and I see that I'm standing in a loudly buzzing horde of six‑legged Draculas. Like a cloud masking the sun, the lights darken around me and innumerable voracious mosquitoes land on my body and start to perform a joint hypodermic massacre.
As I feel their mouth parts penetrate my skin, I feel like a baby caribou in the arctic tundra, beleaguered and in danger of rapid exsanguination. I have never felt so instantaneously and thoroughly itchy.
Although I'm exposed for only a minute, the mosquitoes bite through my clothes and they leave marks. Oh, my God is exactly right. They leave marks on my legs, arms, neck and face. It's terrible. I get back to the van and I examine myself in the mirror and I'm horrified to see welts on my lips, on my eyelids and even the inside of my nostrils. It is just disrespectful. These mosquitoes have me looking like I just got beat up by nature.
Like most people, I'm not a big fan of mosquito bites and I'm really mad about the ones in my face. However, I have a plan. On the outside. I look as cool as the world's bumpiest cucumber, but on the inside, I'm saying to myself, “Ralph, you're a damn chump. You could have predicted this. Come on. You could have done a little ecological forecasting if you weren't so preoccupied with your feelings.
Ralph Washington Jr. shares his story at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA in February 2023. Photo by Exploratorium.
Number one, you know that Aedes increpitus is the prominent mosquito species in the region. Come on. Number two, you know that it's a wet year, so the increased seasonal precipitation was going to grow the population. Number three, you know that the larvae develop in melted snow so the adults don't have a lot of time to produce the next generation, which means that they don't drag their tarsi when they're trying to get that red juice.”
My self‑criticism is interrupted when I hear a familiar whine and I notice that a mosquito has followed me into the van. I square up on her, prepared to win our rematch via first round knockout, but I stopped short when I realized that I've met her before, many years ago, in a place that's not very far from where I am now.
When I was a kid, a family friend took my brothers and me on a backpacking trip in early spring. I remember most of the trip is a blur of novel experiences. None of us had gone camping before, much less sleep in the open under a blanket of stars. Marmots tried to invade our sleeping bags and we sealed ourselves up like frightened caterpillars.
We went fishing for the first time and dined gratefully in a lake trout that we caught. It was the first time that any of us had gone a day without hearing cars, electronics or the other stride and trappings of modern civilization. It was the very first time that the three of us got to sit together in natural peace.
On the second day, we're walking around looking for a place to throw rocks. We're kids. And we find a small pond filled with frigid water. When we leaned over the surface, we looked at each other, saw the small creatures wriggling within and asserted confidently that we had discovered aliens. I had never seen mosquito larvae before and no one had described them to me so they were entirely novel. I mean, have you ever taken a look at them?
They look bizarre. Listen, they have a comically large head, a narrow body covered in bristles and many of the species, including this one in particular, have a respiratory siphon that makes it look like they have a snorkel poking out of their butt. Silliness. Mosquito larvae look like their body was assembled by Mr. Potato Head. Ridiculous creatures.
Yet my brothers and I were mesmerized, so we sit there for hours thinking about them and speculating on their origin.
Ralph Washington Jr. shares his story at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA in February 2023. Photo by Exploratorium.
There I am savoring. I savor the memory of my brothers and I laughing together in wonder and I watched this lone mosquito fly around me on delicate panes of gossamer and I realize that I am just as curious about her then as the younger version of me was curious about the younger version of her.
She has faced great challenges. She spent her immaturity submerged in freezing cold water. She has to acquire a precious resource from a host who is violently reluctant to part with it. And then she has to hastily mate and lay eggs before the water gets too warm for her offspring. She is vulnerable, alone and lives a life fraught with adversity.
So, instead of resentfully swatting her, I let her suck five micrograms of my blood, I cracked the window just enough to let her escape and I watch her slowly fly away with the heavy burden that will allow her to produce more of the little aliens that mesmerized me as a child.
And I whisper gratitude to her as she leaves, because she's helped me understand what kind of entomologist I want to be. I don't want to be an entomologist who wipes out insects. I want to be one who watches them thrive.
Thank you.