Have you heard the term “mosquito magnet”? I have the misfortune of being one. In a crowd, the miniature vampires ignore everyone else and seek me out as a choice meal. Being bitten is bad, but they also find other ways to make me miserable.
I have written on my disdain for flies and having them land on me. Who knows what filth they were in before alighting on my skin? I don’t have the same type of aversion to mosquitoes, but I still don’t want to be bitten. If one lands on me while I’m outside, I can brush it away, use my alcohol hand sanitizer, and feel okay. But if it’s in my house (where one would think I’d feel safer), I worry that it may have been resting on an object in the house that I am unable to keep sanitized. That includes the walls. How am I supposed to disinfect walls? I know this is unreasonable when I think about the size of a mosquito’s legs. Their footprints, so to speak, are practically microscopic. Yet it bothers me.
Not long ago, a mosquito managed to gain entry to the house. I hate seeing them because they are so elusive, and I cannot rest comfortably knowing that there is one lurking about. I saw it only once or twice that evening, and then the tiny escape artist went into hiding. I couldn’t be at ease in my chair because of concern that it would bite me. I couldn’t stand in one spot without constantly shifting my legs and looking around for it. My entire evening was disrupted by it. Even if I suspect that there is one in hiding, I never have problems with them once I turn the fan on high and get in bed. So, I slept peacefully, but I was up the next morning for only a few minutes when it made its first appearance. I had to start the mosquito dance again, never staying still for a moment. It kept coming at my head, but I couldn’t get it. The only benefit of this was that I was moving as fast as I could to get ready for work and get out of the house, away from the little monster. I was ahead of schedule when I went to the mirror to check my makeup. There it was, smack-dab in the middle of my forehead!
My instinct was to wave it away, because I don’t want a smashed bug on my forehead or my hand. It disappeared again. I thought I was moving fast already, but then I kicked into high gear. I considered using one wet wipe to clean off any germs from my forehead, but the more I thought about it, the more wipes I wanted to use. I pulled eight of them out and rubbed them over my forehead. This was another instance of a bug using up my time and money. But I didn’t see it again before I left the house.
This is mosquito season, so that was not the last one I saw. Earlier this week, I once again had a winged visitor while in my room. It was another restless evening for me, doing the shuffle to avoid the mosquito. It was a similar pattern, in that I saw it only briefly a couple of times, but it was enough to leave me unsettled. I saw it shortly before I headed for the shower, and I wished that I could have squashed it so that it wouldn’t have the chance to ruin my cleanliness after getting out. After the shower, it seemed like a good idea to wave my arms around on my way back to the bedroom to prevent it from landing on me. I reached the doorway, and bam! My hand smacked into the wall. The mosquito hadn’t landed on me, but I got something worse. With my clean hand now contaminated, I had to march back to the bathroom and do a super-wash of my hands and arms. There went more time and money down the drain.
I usually don’t like cold weather, but winter sounds appealing right now!
