Mosquito Ace

Is it my imagination, or are there more mosquitoes now than last summer? Despite all my best efforts, I seem to have six bites going at any given time.

Don’t you hate it when you’re in bed, all comfy in that drowsy, just about to fall asleep mode, when all of a sudden you hear the unmistakable high pitched buzz of a mosquito zooming by your ear?

I don’t care how drowsy, comfy, or sanguine you are, nothing will break your reverie faster than knowing that a mosquito is just waiting for you to fall asleep so they can have dinner - and you are the menu. They might start with your arm for an appetizer, moving to your legs for the main course, and top off their repast with your face. I can’t speak for others, but when I hear that zizzy sound, I fling the covers off, flip on the light and the battle is ON!

Mosquitoes have been around far longer than people. If there’s any credence to Carl Yung’s race memory theory, then mosquitoes have millions of years of predatory race memory built into their tiny brains. Whereas, we have only a few hundred thousand years of practice outwitting them, so the advantage is theirs.

Sitting in bed, I wait for one to fly by. They have a slow screwball pattern and yet, when I clap my hands through the air, I miss them. It always surprises me, they aren’t flying that fast, I should be able to catch them in flight, but I never do. And for reasons unknown, a fly swatter, which works great on flies who certainly fly faster than mosquitoes, can’t seem to get them either.

I figured out that their millions of years of experience has given them a sixth sense about things coming at them at a rapid rate of speed. Of course a mosquito being hit by a human hand must equate to us being hit by a building, there’s a good chance we’d see a building coming at us. We have to assume that their visual acuity is at least as great as our own. If I can see a building coming, they can see a hand and that’s why they can get out of the way so fast.

So, since they know what a human hand looks like, I’d have to come up with a new strategy. I had a small white rectangular scarf box about 10 inches long, on my bed one night leaning against the white wall. I’d heard the zizzy sound and was up and on patrol. As I glanced over at the wall, I saw her land up high up in the corner. I knew from experience than she’d fly a little closer and a little closer as she snuck up on me (I am so on their game).

As she got to the point where she was just past arms length and hence still in her safety zone, she landed. Landed because she thought she was safe. Landed so she could stand there on the wall and laugh at me. She was waiting. Waiting and choosing which part of me looked most succulent tonight. Slowly, I wrapped my hand around the box, all the while watching the TV and tracking her in my peripheral vision. The white box was camouflaged against the white wall. A box looks nothing like a hand or a fly swatter. This was an object not familiar to her. People never grab boxes to swat mosquitoes, she wouldn’t know that I could reach into her safety zone with this box, the advantage was mine.....

She lifted up and landed about an inch closer. The tension was incredible...predator versus prey....I saw her rub her front legs together, the way they do when they’ve made their decision and visualized a little landing zone on an exposed piece of your flesh, and BAM! She was all over the wall! Just a red smear with broken black fibers! AHHHH VICTORY IS MINE!

That box stays on my bed now. I’ve killed seventeen mosquitoes on my bedroom wall so far. I know because I’ve left all the smears there. Just like a pilot marking off kills on the side of his plane, I leave the smears and smudges there, in testament to my skill and determination. The smears could serve as a warning, if the newcomers cared to pay attention.

But that’s the problem being a Mosquito Ace, there’s a always another mosquito coming along. One who thinks she faster than me. Another one who just has to try, another one who just has to die....