This bugs me a lot

This bugs me a lot!

The only good mosquito is one of these

I'm not an inherently violent man. I am also not  prone to be a rubbernecker at car wrecks, nor do I  watch disaster porn. But, I do relish and quite enjoy  the appearance the dead squashed body of a  mosquito on a wall or floor. Yes, I admit it, I want  them dead! I want them all dead, I want their  families dead, their friends dead, I want all things  mosquito dead. I don't care if that creates a hole in  the ecosystem so that some poor starving bird or  malnourished bat might go hungry. Mosquitoes are a  mistake and a blight on all living things. It is, as far  as I'm concerned, proof enough that there is no god,  after all, what kind of a god would create the  mosquito that causes so much suffering and  scratching without regard for our god given right to  wear shorts at night? Puff, puff, okay, I've said it out  loud. I am calling for a complete speciescide or  whatever of the mosquito, that's a real word right?

I have had, like many other caring and concerned people, a long simmering hate for that particular bug. They are nothing but blood sucking disease carriers (I realize I've said that about a few right leaning politicos but this blog is not about them) that seem to have no other reason for their existence than to fill a minor portion on the menu of the aforementioned bats and birds who dine on them. I also have a strong suspicion that bats and birds will survive without the mosquito so I'm willing to take that chance. That's only guess but, at this point, I don't care. I'm all for a scorched earth policy here if it eradicates the bloody things from the face of the earth, or more accurately, my ass when I get bit at night.

Now, I'm not sure but, in right wing-nut conspiracy land, which I rarely visit due to the prices, I wonder about the mosquito-repellent-insecticide-screen/netting-industrial complex. Yes folks, where there is money to be made there will be greedy capitalists there to make a profit off other people's suffering. Just think about the repellent industry for a minute. There are companies out there who make literally millions of dollars, baht, yen, yuan, pounds, euros, drachmas and rials selling this stuff. Ask yourself, could they be part of the stagnant water cartels that are so popular around abandoned factories and failed condo sites? Don't even get me started on beaver ponds and their part in all of this.

Like the label says

I just read the instructions on a bottle of this stuff I picked up at a flea market and it looks like nothing but a marketing scheme. They tell you to spread it on “liberally” as if politics has anything to do with it. They never say to use it “conservatively” do they, no, just use it willy-nilly like some sort of Marxist-Lenenist toad? Makes it pretty obvious whose camp they're in. Their primary purpose is to goad you into using as much as possible as often as possible so you are forced to buy, buy, buy.

There are brands of this stuff that smell like flowers, which draws bees and other sugar sucking fauna, which nobody in their right mind wants. There are other brands that smell like a chemical factory after a major spill or the waste disposal room at a surgical clinic, don't ask. The one I bought at a fishing camp in Ontario smelled exactly like that big tire fire in Akron but, the worst one was some crap I bought in south China, it smelled just like wet cats and cheese...burp.

There is nothing more self-defeating than having a quick shower before going to bed than having to slather mosquito repellent all over your freshly freshened body and then laying down on your clean sheets. I spend a lot of my time in tropical countries so I have 8 or 9 showers day on average, which is not uncommon among us western sweaters, so I tend to use copious amounts of repellent on a day-to-day basis.

Then there are all the other parts of this heinous mosquito borne business. There are the mosquito net purveyors as well as their co-conspirator mosquito screen manufactures who use the word mosquito in their advertisements the way a US Senator uses the word terrorist to drum up some extra Home Land Security cash for his or her lobbyist friends at the NRA. That's right folks, I'm accusing the NRA of being pro-mosquito for profit! They can sue me if they want, I'm standing by my words.

One of the most scurrilous parts of the loathsome mosquito-industrial complex is the consortium of insecticide manufacturers. These guys are the worst of the bunch. They sell cans of spray that are, in some cases, nearly a meter long (high?) and that have less than an ounce (millimetre?) of eco-destroying, bird killing, lung searing poison in them. I bought can of this stuff a couple of weeks ago that lasted about eight seconds and only managed to kill my appetite.

This is the one I presently use

There is this one brand of flying bug spray I've bought about 150 times in Chiang Mai that claims to have a residual effect that will kill these little buggers for weeks or even years after use. Well, that's what I think the label says, my Thai reading skills are a little lacking and I'm a bit of a slow learner. Anyway, I watched a family of mosquitoes chowing down on this stuff like Jose Canseco spiking some steroids before a game, so I don't think it lives up to its billing. Many insecticide manufactures have no moral core whatsoever. Hell, I just bought and used one of those chalk thingies that you use to draw lines around your table legs that is supposed to repel ants and roaches. I spent about an hour this morning watching one of those high speed micro-ants on the aforementioned steroids using what looked like a super micro snowboard as it swung back and forth on the line I drew like it was scooting down a half-pipe at the Olympics (a note to the IOF – please don't sue me for that reference, I only used it in the sense of “fair use” and had/have no intent on profiting in anyway from its use, and if by accident I show a profit from its use I will immediately, upon receipt of said profits, send all of it to your fine offices – promise) but that's another story.

And let's not forget the drug companies! The drug companies are always at the heart of things aren't they? Where there is disease and pain, there they are with their drugs and cures – bastards. I know a guy who got malaria from a mosquito bite in Africa who will have to use some drug company's drugs for the rest of his life. Hell, I even buy some expensive steroid cream (stop drooling Jose) myself now and then to soothe the itch when I can't find Tiger Balm on sale. A question for you: could that mosquito, the one who bit my friend, have been trained by some drug company contractor to carry that disease for them? What kind of skills do mosquitoes need to carry and deploy a disease like malaria or dengue fever? Bastards!

Flying Tigers, now that's what I'm talking about

I've heard talk, and read stories where the US military are training dolphins and other woodland creatures to perform special ops tasks, well I would like to ask them to train bats and Purple Martins for a similar task. I want the entire US military-industrial complex to take on a humanitarian task of epic scale and declare a “War on Mosquitoes.” Screw the damn terrorists and the “War on Terror,” we'll never get rid of those dickwads anyway, so what's the point? But maybe there's more profit in keeping mosquitoes biting us, making us itch and spreading disease than there is in killing them, I don't know. Personally, I would just like a fair fight.

Update: Shortly after I wrote this I got bit and got a nasty case of dengue fever. They've declared war on me for this column...bastards.