MOSQUITOES!

YAY! I don’t have to go to work until the weekend again. I hope… Everyone’s ill, so you never know. The last thing I did before going home this morning, was to call around in order to find someone who could work the morning shift. Someone who didn’t have sick coming out of both ends… I dragged numerous people out of their warm, cozy beds in order to say something along the lines of “Good morning, how would you feel about coming to work in… oh… say half an hour?” Strangely, nobody jumped at the idea. Go figure.

So where was I? Oh, yeah – the mosquitoes.

Well, as you may or may not have gathered, I was fairly desperate to have a pet when I was a child. It didn’t have to be soft, friendly or particularly lovable. As long as it had some sort of a pulse, that was enough for me. Although, one of our neighbours did have a stuffed beaver that I liked a lot.

Anyway, me and my friends would roam the countryside, armed to the teeth with boxes, jars, bags and whatever else we might possibly catch living creatures in.
At about this time, some people had gotten it into their heads that moving to town would be a clever idea (it wasn’t a lasting idea, but still…). There were quite a few construction sites here and there, and we played in all of them, of course. In one of these sites, we found a large concrete tub-like thing, filled with water. And in the water floated tiny little larva. Perfect pets!
I brought two large jars home with me, stashed them behind the curtains in my room, and immediately started them on the breadcrumb diet that killed so many tadpoles before them.
That summer the house was full of mosquitoes. I remember mum and dad both wondering about where the hell they were coming from (yes, they were so worked up about the mosquitoes, they actually used that word in front of us children. Shock and horror. Hehe). They put nets in all the windows and doors, but the invasion just kept on.
Then, one day, mum was heading past my bedroom door on her way to the kitchen, when she heard a loud buzzing sound. Upon further inspection, she discovered that it was coming from inside my room. Curious, she opened the door – and saw what she later described as a large, brown cloud. She wasn’t to happy about having to fight her way through an angry army of bloodsucking insects in order to open the window. Then, of course, the door to my room had to be completely sealed, so that the buggers couldn’t come through. I had to sleep in my parents room, all of us full of itchy, red bites. It was interesting.