Jackie Wells-Fauth
I would like to write an article today in praise and admiration of that most humble and small insect…the mosquito. I would LIKE to write an article in praise and admiration of them, but unfortunately, mosquitoes do nothing to incite my praise or admiration!
I love the summer, but at about this time, when I am nursing the 910th mosquito bite of the season, I am ready for a good frost…something that will offer warm days after it but will kill off the mosquitoes! Of all the beings God put on the earth, this is the one I can’t quite reconcile myself to!
If a person is walking in the early morning, especially after a rainstorm, your walking companions are sure to be mosquitoes. If anyone saw me waving my arms and screaming at nothing, “Get off me! Will you get away from me?” they would have one of two reactions. First, if they are from this area, they would know I’m talking to mosquitoes. If they are not from this area, they might just assume I am the local harmless madwoman. And with enough mosquitoes around, it might just be both!
What is there about that dratted insect that causes it to go straight for the face? My grandson was here for a week and on the first day, he had four bites on his cheeks and one on his eyelid! Poor child looked like he had been in a street brawl!
I slap the most mosquitoes from my face and especially do I despise the hardy little varmints who try to crawl under my glasses. I have deformed, defaced and downright ruined more glasses while going after mosquitoes crawling under them than I can count, and a lot of times by the time I tear off the glasses, scream, “I’ve got you, you little devil!” and slap myself in the face, that is all I’ve accomplished—a slap in my face! The mosquito is flying away, laughing, “No, no, it is I who have got you! Thanks for the blood donation—happy itching!”
And therein comes my next complaint—what is there that effectively stops a mosquito bite from itching? Usually, by the time I realize I am scratching a mosquito bite, I have successfully removed one layer of skin—at least. Nothing I have tried has made a difference, and I think I’ve tried it all. I have slathered myself with enough oatmeal paste to feed a small nation and I have tried myriad types of jellies and creams and only succeeded in greasing myself up like a pig in a wrestling competition. None of the treatments I have tried have stopped the itching.
In order to distract myself from my latest set of bites (seven of them on my feet, no less), I looked up information about the mosquito. Only the female “bites” apparently, but she does it so she can develop eggs. That means that miserable witch is using my blood to make MORE mosquitoes! Whatever they use it for, they draw blood with the precision of a needle and the skill of a surgeon. They live about 30 days, which is just 29 and three quarters too long, and best of all, while they are digging around in our blood vessels, sucking blood which would make Count Dracula proud, they are able to share all the nasty diseases they are carrying!
It said in the article that mosquitoes can be “controlled” with insecticides, or by destroying the areas where they breed. I am sure that the scientists out there know what they are doing, but I have to say that nothing is so satisfying in controlling a mosquito as the “slap, slap” of my hand, producing a squashed insect! I know that makes me bloodthirsty but look who I’m fighting.
I suppose, since I have nothing praise-worthy or admirable to say about the mosquito, I should end this article. But let me say in closing, “Mosquitoes: we are bigger than you and sometimes even smarter and besides all that, winter is coming; so why don’t you just bite me? Oh, wait! No, I take it back! ‘Slap, Slap’ I don’t mean to actually bite me, ‘Slap, slap, slap…”
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