The war we never anticipated and may never win

Mark and I didn't come here looking for a fight. We're peaceful people. We don't even fight with each other. But this week, our rage has been so provoked that every morning we wake before the sunrise and hunt our enemy until we see blood splattered all over the walls and we feel we can rest. Who is this nemesis that has earned such wrath from us? It is the never ending stream of blood-thirsty bastards that are driven by something even more powerful than politics. You kill one of them and two more takes its place. How they infiltrate we aren't sure - perhaps security checks aren't tough enough at the open window upstairs.

What I do know is that Mark and I have killed probably 25 mosquitoes in the early morning hours of the past week. They buzz infuriatingly about our heads around 4:30/5 every morning, and so we have to wake up, turn on the light, and hunt them down with magazines. There are now myriad blood spots on our white walls from their little exploding thoraxes. We have one of those things you plug in that are supposed to kill them, but nothing wards them off. Maybe they realized that the drums weren't waking us up anymore, and so something had to keep us from a sound night's rest.

I have always hated mosquitoes - my single greatest moment of fear was being lost in a swamp and being terrified that any article of clothing might rip and I would expose an inch of flesh and be devoured alive by the satanic hoard that was so dense it was only barely transluscent. But I got over that - they were just doing their thing, and I was in their swamp, so why wouldn't they want to eat me? But now, it's personal. They're coming after us at home, and that ain't right.

We're considering invading the parks and such that support the growth of mosquitoes in puddles, but are reluctant due to the prospect of having to set up an interim hive and control all the various hostile puddle factions.


- I apologize to anyone offended by the jest of this metaphor, but I couldn't resist.