War in the Bedroom

The door is shut. As I write this, I am sitting on my bed, iBook on my lap. I am alone, and yet not. My senses are alert, and my eyes lift from the computer screen to scan the room searchingly. I have entered into an epic battle in my bedroom that has been ongoing for the past three days. The scars I bear are many…large red welts cover my back, my thigh, both of my arms, my toes…fortunately thus far my face has remained unscathed. I hear the familiar buzz; my enemy is close by, coming in from behind. The laptop is momentarily thrust aside; it almost falls. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. My hands slap together and mercifully, the whirring stops. I look down reluctantly. A black body lies crushed in my hands. It looks harmless while dead, and for a moment I regret my actions, wishing that I had followed a more Buddhist path, and learned to live in my surroundings without willingly harming another creature. Just as quickly as it arose, the thought fades, as a familiar itching consumes my senses, a round mark swelling, this time on my neck. The beast did not die without a fight. My wrath rises anew. Thus another skirmish ends in the epic saga of Man Vs. The Mosquito.

In the early days of my mosquito rage, I asked God, the World, and www.google.com why the mosquito seemed especially attracted to me, even more so than my Indonesian brethren. When in a crowded place, it is upon I that the mosquitoes magnetize, no matter where I run in a room or how many of them I manage to take down. In the absence of a fragrant bug repellant, I hoped to change my behavior, my bathing habits, or whatever was necessary to rid myself of my enemies’ unwanted presence. And in my quest for that answer, I discovered some interesting facts about mosquitoes. After all, this is a war. And the first rule of combat is: “Know thy enemy.”

Fact: only the female mosquito draws blood from its victims. The male is content to copulate, drawn to the female by the high-pitched whirring of her wings, which can beat as fast as 1000 times per second. He only lives 7-10 days, the first two of which he is disoriented, unable to hear until his hairy antennas dry. The female is the bloodsucker because she needs the blood to develop eggs inside her body. If she draws blood from you, be sure to kill her quickly. One female can lie up to 3000 eggs within the approximately thirty days that she’s alive. She’s sure to be moving slower, as she can suck up to 1.5 times her body weight in blood before full. And the suckers fly fast…as much as a mile an hour. One study mentioned that overweight males with a type-O blood type are more likely to be victims of mosquito attacks, but as I am none of those things, I remain skeptical. That in combination with the fact that there are over 3000 mosquito species, so unless we know exactly what species of mosquito we’re dealing with, there is only a small chance that the statistic applies to our specific situation anyway.

Back in the bedroom, my hands clap together again. Too late, the mosquito escapes my grasp. It looks insane, darting to and fro about the room, taunting me. Enough is enough. I leave the room, to return a few moments later, grinning. I am armed with a deadly oil. It plugs into the wall and is discharged throughout the room at a steady rate. It has a cloying smell and almost certainly is accompanied by some sort of health risk. There is small print on the bottle, but I’m afraid to read it. I leave the room again, this time returning twenty minutes later. I sit on the bed, computer once more in position. Directly in front of me, I watch as the results of my labors take affect. A mosquito struggles to fly towards the ceiling. Its wings seem to be working too hard, it splutters upwards, and falls. I smile, a little wickedly, as I absent-mindedly scratch my right forearm. I’m not sure who wins, because I feel in my heart I have cheated, but it doesn’t matter to me anymore. It is finished. I shall sleep in peace tonight.