#moquitoes

I arrived at my final offer. Mosquitoes were welcome to take some of my blood - I contributed far more blood in the course of a year through skinned knees, brier scratches, and miscellaneous other scrapes than the mosquitoes would need. Only two things I wanted in return. No more itchy bumps to keep me awake and twitchy. And almost more importantly, STOP BUZZING IN MY EARS.

Alas, the universe, in its infinite variety, has not yet accepted my very reasonable offer. Mosquito bites continue to make me itch. And the sound of a mosquito humming in my ear still makes me slap my head, sometimes painfully.

Oddly, when as an adult I moved to a distant state, the mosquitoes there found me less appetizing. I appeared to be their last choice: In a group of people, everyone else would be slapping, swearing, and calling for insect repellent while I might have a visitor or two the entire evening. I thought perhaps it was a function of age. That I'd "grown out of" being tasty to mosquitoes. Unfortunately, when I visited my old scratching grounds, I found that the descendants of my old diners were more than happy to see me and to attempt to make up for lost time.

So it goes. My offer stands. If they'll just give up the itching and buzzing, I'll stop killing them on sight and a reasonable number of mosquitoes are welcome to a good protein feed before laying. It's rather fascinating to see how much blood a single mosquito can get into her abdomen, compared with the size of her body. (If I go someplace where unreasonable numbers congregate, it's on me to wear protective clothing or those nasty repellents).