What happened to Muskol? Do you remember that stuff? It was 100 percent Deet. All the experts recommend bug spray with Deet in it, but none of the junk they sell these days has enough Deet to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
Maybe Muskol disappeared because it was causing people to grow extra heads out of the sides of their necks or something. That stuff was pretty hard-core. If you left any of it on your hands and then picked up your fishing rod, it would eat the handle of the rod. Sometimes it was hard to let go of the rod, because the Muskol caused your hands to graft onto the handle of the rod.
But it worked. You’d put a little bit of it on your hat, a little more on the cuffs of your jeans, and maybe smear a bit on the exposed skin between your elbow and your wrist, and no mosquito would come near you. On the rare occasion a mosquito was audacious enough to land on you, it would immediately explode. Sometimes you could even hear the mosquitoes scream. It was hard to differentiate from the buzzing of the cloud of skeeters buzzing a safe distance away from your Muskol-soaked head, but if you listened close, you could hear them going, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
But now, the best I can find is 40 percent Deet. That’s just not enough. And frankly, I feel a little ripped off when I buy a can of 40 percent Deet, and 60 percent nothing. Less than half the ingredients in my Deep Woods Off are Deet. If you looked at the label of Muskol, it said, “Ingredients: Deet.” That was it. Nothing else. No water, no glycerin, no nothing. Just straight, unadulterated Deet.
And it’s the only thing that worked. I had a full can of Deep Woods Off all over me over the weekend, and today I look like someone used me as a pin cushion.
Bring back the Deet. I’ll take my chances with mutations, as long as I don’t get sucked dry by mosquitoes.
