Mid-April               Hate Ode to Mosquitoes

        We were supposed to have a typhoon, but it was another one of those warnings dragged out for several days that turned out to be a no-show.  It’s been rather gusty for a few days and we keep getting light sprinkles where it doesn’t rain enough for you to need your umbrella, but enough so that you don’t want to get any acidy drops on you anyway.  And apparently, it is prime mosquito weather.

        Despite my nightly dousings of DEET, I’ve suddenly broken out in mosquito bites that I got from both home (heard it buzzing in my sleep, woke up from a buzzy-sounding dream waving my arms wildly), school and work.  Forget SARS, the number one reason I am now dying to go home is because of @#$!ing mosquitoes.  Many wonder why I expend so much hateful energy bitching about what is for most normal people, a minor annoyance.  Niclas for example.  Well mosquitoes give Niclas cute tiny bites, more like nibbles, all in a row like they’re eating corn, which don’t itch him at all, and which disappear within a few hours.  Me on the other hand, my body reacts like black widow spider venom concentrate has been injected into my veins, I spend days and sleepless nights scratching until the inflammation grows to tumorlike proportions, and the mosquito vomit residue remains inside to bubble, fester and darken for years. 

And the Taiwan species of mosquitoes are quite evolutionarily advanced.  Like New York rats.  They hop up next to you in the subway to read your newspaper.  So they have no problem finding the minute spots on my body missed by the OFF spray and therefore I get bites in creative spots like the sole of my foot, my palms, fingers, between my toes, my ear, back and neck.  About the only places I haven’t gotten bitten are my boobs and my butt.  Perhaps they don’t like my underwear.  Any other theories?

As a result, I am now head of a new movement, Advocates for Mosquito Extinction Now (A.M.E.N.) !  Really, I propose this should not be very difficult.  There are dozens of animal species driven to extinction or near-extinction because some tiny elitist portion of society that killed them off for some monetary reason.  Then just think of the billions of people in the entire WORLD that unanimously agree that mosquitoes are annoying!  Not to mention the public health hazard they pose in helping to spread diseases, not just to people but livestock too.  To drive my point home, I would even calculate an estimate of the millions of dollars mosquito extinction could potentially save our global economy.  However, my nerdiness only goes so far as to where it meets my laziness, so I will not.