Mosquito Gratitude

Thank you gluttonous mosquito for turning my Saturday night into your own private all-you-can-eat buffet.

We are lucky enough in SoCal to escape summers of swarming mosquitos and bugs in general; we traded them for earthquakes, epic traffic jams and no NFL football team, so yep, I still think we’re ahead.

There is only one of you, you persistent little shit, I can tell by your distinctive, stuttering, high-pitched whine (you might want to get that checked out ), and I have no idea how you got into the house seeing that it’s been as hot as the surface of Mars these past few weeks and no door or window has been open for more than the three seconds it takes to exit or enter our seventy-five degree, humidity free sanctuary.

It was the doggie door wasn’t it? Well, you’re resourceful, I’ll give you that.

I apologize for trying to kill you, swinging wildly in the dark every time you dive-bombed my left shoulder.
I’m a pacifist at heart. Really.
I carry spiders outside for crying out loud —because spiders have the good sense to hang out up on the ceiling and they leave my left shoulder alone. Besides, spiders are fellow artists, spinning their stunning webs all over the property. What beautiful thing have you created lately, besides this humongous welt on my back?

Still, I have to thank you. You taught me patience and you made me appreciate my little family.

First the patience…okay, well, that was about as long as they lasted.

I have exactly zero tolerance for a mosquito that has no self-control and can’t realize when he’s full. You served yourself at my shoulder four times, my knee (I don’t even want to know how you got under and out of the covers)—and my pinkie. Seriously?
You, my friend, need to practice some portion control!

After hearing your deranged buzz and feeling you near my face as you flew your little scouting missions for several hours, I wanted to scream and pull out all of my hair—instead, I got up, ran to pee,(I didn’t want you to follow me, I was trying to avoid a fish in a barrel situation in the bathroom) and made sure my husband and the boxer-bitch were covered.

My husband is made from very rare and delicate French stock.
His skin is…different from my tough American horsehide—it just is.
It is void of pores and as soft as a baby’s ass and when bitten it gets as hot, angry and red as Donald Trump’s face when asked the names of foreign Heads of State.

The boxer-bitch is simply too spoiled to bite.
Super cute, but ornery as hell—I know you wouldn’t bite a teenager for the same reason, but I covered her nubby little butt anyway, and as I found my way back to bed, flailing my arms around like a crazed scarecrow, trying to find you in the dark, I was filled with love and appreciation.

I kid you not.

I was thankful I wasn’t in the Amazon with bugs so prolific I was forced to sleep in a bed under a full mosquito net—or in South Africa avoiding deadly black mamba snakes on my way to pee, (With those guys you hit the ground dead in three minutes, so I know my last thought would be: Did I pull up my pants?), I was thankful that I had a tube of Benadryl handy for the itching—and I was thankful there was only one of you. It made me feel better about my odds of hunting you down and killing you.

Thankfully, I fell asleep and we all survived the night.
Since I knew you were fat and happy, and we had formed a relationship, an uneasy truce of sorts—the next morning while it was a bracing 78 degrees at 6 am, I opened all the doors in the bedroom to facilitate your clean getaway.

Thank you and you’re welcome.

Carry on,
xox