Bugs bug me.

I have been anxiously enduring the February/March battles between springtime weather and winter-like freezes.

Yes, I am concerned that the freeze-thaw cycle will turn our roads into washboards. Yes, I share my wife’s concern that premature budding will be frosted into nothing but leaves on our apple, peach, plum and pear trees.

But bugs are my big … wait for it … bugaboo.

I have no idea why this is so, but I find that, in my 70s, I am extremely distressed by bites from mosquitoes, flies, chiggers, no-see-ums, etc.

When I was younger, I got bitten, of course. We all do. But it seems to me that an occasional slathering with chalky calamine lotion enabled me to go about my business without wiggling, jiggling, rubbing, chafing and imitating my dance floor gyrations to Bob Seeger’s “Old-Time Rock ‘N Roll” — which is not pretty.

The problem is not limited to Pennsylvania. On occasional family visit forays to New Jersey, to Virginia and to South Carolina, I invariably return home welted and chafed on arms, legs and, especially, ankles.

My wife, the confirmed naturopath, mixes up spray bottles of “natural’ insect repellent. She sprays me. I am immediately made more attractive to stray cats and others’ dogs, who take delight in rubbing up against my calves, knees and, if I am sitting, arms and shoulders.

From Tabby and Fido, these close encounters of the furry kind are tolerable. But my wife’s eau de catnip/garlic sprays are also irresistible to animals that ought to be named “Simba” and “Butch.” They drool, and utter low, throaty rumblings that sound like “I am hungry” stomach growlings.

I add “trembling” to the abovementioned bodily twitches.

The carnivores’ rubbings and snufflings do at least distract me from the itchiness resultant from the insect bites, at least for a while.

But at nighttime … why is it that an insect bit me below the inside of my ankle, in a spot that insists on reawakening me every time I move my leg?

Copious research has been done; I spent an entire 10-minute period perusing Google’s results to, “Insect bites … me more than others.”

Science suggests several causes for why some of us seem to be more susceptible to being made miserable by insects: Genetics, perfumes, bright clothing, impudent sarcasm (Well, no; I just made that last one up).

But science has no sure-fire suggestions about insect repellents. DEET makes my wife scream, “Poison!” in shrill outbursts. Picardin and Natrapel are claimed to be even better at repelling, but less toxic to our systems.

Hah.

Understand, my experience with chemical insect repellents must be sneaky. Hell hath no fury like a no-chemicals spouse whose nostrils are affronted by my having sprayed myself with stuff from an aerosol can — even though this same spouse only chuckles in amusement when I am driven to eyes-watering, throat-closing distraction by her “healthy” habit of chomping on entire cloves of garlic while sitting beside me in a vehicle with the windows closed.

She screeches.

So I sneak.

I swear, though, that I would sneak doses of arsenic if it would provide sure-fire protection against the itchiness of insect bites.

In recent years, we have experimented with wintertime escapes to the Florida panhandle, where warmth – and insects – abound.

Upon our return, I am lumpy and bumpy at midsummer levels while Florida’s Culex, Anopheles, and other genera, family Culicidae, do the insect equivalent of burping in satisfaction at having ingested my skin and blood.

We have not yet dared to stay beyond April 1, because, I am told, Florida is inhabited by a species whose bites are even more cannibalistic than mosquitoes, e.g., yellow flies.

So we return to western Pennsylvania, hoping that winter’s cold grip has slaughtered mosquitoes, gnats, deer ticks and, for that matter, rhinoceroses (rhinocerosi?).

Two years ago, that did happen — with other side effects.

The 18 inches of snow atop ice atop snow that coated our driveway in March of 2015 was a brutal reminder of what the rest of you folks had endured during our previous trip to the South.

But the bugs were, mercifully, decimated. It was well into June before I needed to again wear long-sleeved, long-legged clothing on my daily walks through our fields.

This year, I fear, the bugs will have begun to buzz during the springtime thaws but, unlike the fruit trees’ once-a-season buds, will survive the returns to sub-freezing temperatures in enough numbers to make life hellacious for those of us who throb and pulsate at every insect-borne cutaneous chomping.

“Ah, spring!” some might say.

My mantra is a bit different: “Pass the DEET, and tell her it is deodorant!”

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Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.