Why? The culprits are the vicious fire ants you see crawling on the boots in the picture. Within seconds, they aggressively swarm, attacking anything that disturbs their mound. Each one stings multiple times, injecting a venom that leaves pimple-like blisters that can scar and itch like, well, fire. Their mounds are huge and appear within hours, especially after a rain. A rain, like, oh, the one we had last week because we were on the wet side of Hurricane Alex. Did I mention that fire ants float? You don’t want to go wading in flood waters. ANYway, they build their mounds everywhere, including electrical boxes and air conditioning units and the edges of vegetable gardens belonging to writers who have deadline brain, as perfectly described by Sarah on Monday. And when these writers, who have recently finished their books, stumble outside to rescue their drowning veggies, they aren’t quite as mentally agile as usual and fail to notice the new mound until they are standing right in it. Wearing flip flops. That was Friday. As of this morning, my ankles are back.

Fire ants bring folks together. We can always tell people new to the area because they’ll stare at the ants instead of swatting at them as fast as they can. Complete strangers will race up and start batting at their legs while yelling, “Take off your pants!” People will do this even though they know they’ll probably get bitten on their hands. They’re willing to take a bite to save somebody from serious discomfort.

Fire ants are why you won’t find scenes with couples cavorting in the grass in my Texas-set books. Or wandering barefoot through the grass. Or having picnics on the grass. In fire ant territory, there is no splendor in the grass.

When I use settings I’ve had to research, I always wonder if I’ve missed something like fire ants that I wouldn’t know without living in the area.

What’s something that’s unique to your area of the country or world? What gets overlooked in books and movies? If I set a book in your hometown, what tidbit would I need to know? I’m after insider info, here.