The Mosquito: One Boy’s Losing Battle

My previous post got me thinking about how much I really despise mosquitoes.

A Hatred I Need
I’ve hated the tiny, bloodsucking predators since I was a little kid growing up in the humid, hot, marshy south shore of Long Island.

I remember doing battle with these parasites almost nightly as summertime established itself in late May through the final days of September. Go out after 6:00 p.m. and you risked becoming a universal blood donor to every mosquito within a 10-radius. Your ankles looked like a red, skin-covered mountain range and the itching could drive you to check yourself in at Bellevue Psychiatric.

My mom always told me I was just sweeter than everybody else, but moms are biased.

Let the Buzzing Begin
And just try to go to sleep at night. As soon as the lights went out, and my head hit the pillow, the buzzing began. Like a dentist’s drill in my ear, the mosquitoes would attack, relying on their keen sense of CO2 emissions, and my inability as a human to function at all in the dark.

A slap to side of my head, hoping to trap them inside my ear. Ha! That’ll show em! And then a slap to the other side. Was that the same mosquito, or are there more than one, I’d wonder. I’d itch all over, convinced that there were scores of mosquitoes plunging their malaria-laced sabres into my young, delicate skin. I’d begin kicking at the covers, as if I were drowning in a see of 200-thread-count cotton.

A Desperate, Foolish Attack
Finally, I’d get the courage to leave the bed. I needed to attack, so I’d stumble to the light switch, flick it on, roll up a magazine, and begin the hunt. They were nearly impossible to track down, crafty little bastards, but after a while I’d become somewhat of expert mosquito hunter. Inside a lampshade, out of reach on the ceiling, motionless and camouflaged on a poster or painting — like I said, crafty.

When I’d finally locate one, I’d creep on it, covert and slow. Gripping the magazine, I took aim and prepared to strike…Thwap! But the S.O.B. would inevitably dodge the fire. I’d return, dejected, to my foxhole bed, covers pulled up over my head and pillow over that.

This process would typically repeat several times before I’d fall asleep. In reality, I was only relinquishing my body to their sick mosquito science experiments.

Can’t We Just Eradicate Them?
I’d always figured that, as annoying and even deadly mosquitoes can be, they serve some small but important purpose in the global ecosystem. Turns out, that may not be so, as this article from Nature.com points out: “…In many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other organisms. Life would continue as before — or even better.”