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Life made simple, with the help of a mosquito
© St. Petersburg Times Idon't always get the full benefit out of occurrences in my life, but I usually manage to get some. When I began meditating, I realized that the path to final enlightenment is probably going to be a long and tortuous one, but I also learned, very quickly, how to cure hiccups. My own, anyhow. I didn't come home from the Vietnam War as a hero, but I did, at least, develop an immunity to mosquito bites. I've discovered that the second isn't as impressive as the first in singles bars, but it sure helps when you have to be outdoors in Florida this time of year. I'm not sure how the immunity came about, although one doctor told me it was simply from enduring the bites of millions of mosquitoes over there, one of which gave me a particularly nasty strain of malaria. Whatever it is, I can feel a mosquito when it bites, but it doesn't bother me, and the bites never turn into those nasty red itchy bumps that most folks find themselves wearing this time of year. Alas, I did not also develop an immunity to no-see-ums, those unpleasant little creatures, or to large families with children who think it's cute when their little darlings splash adults at hotel swimming pools. I was, for years, frequently bothered by the high-pitched keening of that one mosquito who manages to get into the bedroom every night, but as I got older, my failing hearing and the ringing in my ears took care of that. I haven't heard a mosquito in years. Still, I was tickled to see the story in our business section Monday about the war on mosquitoes going hi-tech. I feel extremely safe in stating without further research that this is the only country in this war- and famine-torn world that has produced the Mosquito Magnet, a $495 propane-powered device designed to suck mosquitoes into a net where they die of dehydration. Billy Lampkin, who works as a designer for the St. Petersburg Times business desk, tried one of the things out, incidentally, and it managed, in a mere week, to capture 12 mosquitoes. You could kill more mosquitoes in my back yard by just wearing glasses, walking fast, and taking the critters out the way Mack Trucks take out love bugs. I also find it interesting that the animal rights folks, who got their underwear in a bunch a few years back over protecting prawns and lobsters from being boiled alive, apparently have no quarrel with trapping mosquitoes and letting them die of thirst and hunger. Maybe the morality of torturing an animal is inversely proportional to its size. Laugh if you will, but Americans, demonstrating once again that we are a nation with way too much money and way too much time on our hands, spent $23-million on Mosquito Magnets last year. Others plunked down between $300 and $1,500 each for a variety of zappers, traps and repellent machines, most of which, I would guess, work at a level of efficiency somewhere between voodoo and the Florida Department of Children and Families. My personal solution to the mosquito quandary has always been pretty much the same one I apply to traffic, heat, rain, snakes, insects in general and lightning. I just stay inside. Times personal technology editor Dave Gussow also passed along some interesting facts from researcher Caryn Baird about the life and times of mosquitoes, most interesting of which is that female mosquitoes, the ones who bite people and animals, live a month or more but males, who tend to drink plant juices, live only seven to 10 days. My Buddhist friends would point to that as one of the advantages of a vegetarian diet, but I don't think that's it. With all due respect to my feminist colleagues, friends and, occasionally, spouse, and making careful note that the genders in this instance are only coincidental, I think I know the truth. Why do creatures forced to mate with and live in the constant company of bloodsuckers who are constantly whining die first? Because they can.
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Times columns today Jan Glidewell Ernest Hooper Elijah Gosier From the Times North Suncoast desks Editorial Letters Letters Letters |
