Join Delores, MotherOwl, and me as we delve into this topic. You can post a poem in the comments or on your own blog; if you do the latter, please leave a comment so we know where to find you. Use the topic or not -- it's all in fun and it's good exercise for the brain.
*****
Mosquitoes.
Tiny but deadly.
What's worse than turning out the light and climbing into bed after a long summer day and hearing ...... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ..... all around your face? You know you won't be getting any sleep until you (1) donate blood, or (2) kill the critter.
But in the dark, it's hard to know just where to aim. And when the droning stops, things just get worse. You know the flying hypodermic needle has landed and is about to pierce your skin. You wait for the tiny prickling sensation that tells you it has started to insert its pointy proboscis, and slap yourself silly.
Hoping you've landed a death blow, you settle down to sleep again.
Ahhhhhh. Peace and quiet.
And then .............. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...........
It's either Lucky Lindy back again . . . or a half a dozen of her friends who've arrived for the funeral.
I say "Lucky Lindy" because, as we are often told, it's only the females who want to drink our blood. I personally have probably killed thousands of mosquitoes during my life and I bet half of them were innocent. But who can tell if a hovering mosquito is male or female?
Smack it! Smack it dead!
*****
My Hypocrisy
Oh, woe betide the soulless schmuck
Who kicks a dog or shoots a duck
Or pins a wriggling butterfly
Or from such things does turn his eye
My scorn for such a savage jerk
Is merited by his vicious work
. . . But I don't turn a hair and I don't say No
When somebody kills a mos-quit-o
While searching for an appropriate mosquito-related picture, I came across some additional helpful information.
First, this:
And this: (but be sure to read the punch line. We don't want a rash of spoon burns going around the internet.)
*****
Wishing you a week free of things that bug you :)
Love your poem.
ReplyDeleteAnd plead guilty to the same hypocricy. Not a fan of leeches either.
My partner uses me when we go into mosquito laden areas. They love me, and munch away, leaving him totally unfanged. Unfair. Totally unfair.
Mosquitoes are so small it doesn't make a mess when you smack 'em. I don't like lots of other creepy crawlies either (including leeches!) but they're not so easily disposed of . . .
DeleteYes, that choosiness of mosquitoes is completely wrong, especially when you're the one they do choose!
My dad did road location (surveying) for the US Forest Service and that kept him away from home Monday through Friday during the non-rainy months for years.
ReplyDeleteSo my mom would sometimes visit him where he was working if she had some time off, and drag my sister and I out to the National Forest where we would camp and swim and she got to hang out with dad in the evenings after he was done working and sleep with him.
Which is where the mosquitoes come in.
One night she was sleeping with her face near his shoulder and she blinked her eyes and he thought she was a mosquito and swatted her...
I like your poem. I know a few women who fit that description with mosquitoes, but more with spiders, who don't deserve it as much, in my opinion.
-Doug in Oakland
Oh, dear! I bet your dad felt bad afterward :)
DeleteSpiders are useful critters but people can have a "thing" about them, for sure.
Loved the poem and the humorous way to kill a mosquito. Haha about spoon burns.
ReplyDeleteThat method of killing a mosquito seems harder than smacking them, doesn't it? lol
DeleteI've heard it's the males that make the humming sound to distract you while the female finds a good spot. Makes no difference to me, I'll kill all of them, as many as I can. Luckily, I rarely see one anymore.
ReplyDeleteYou ARE lucky! Yeah, I kill indiscriminately, too :) It's hard to do much else.
DeleteHehe yes you're right. I've never been told off for slapping a mosquito. Fun poem well done.
ReplyDeleteBtw, hot spoons actually helps, but of course not burning hot ;)
I wondered if that remedy might have a bit of truth to it. I can remember being almost crazy with itchiness when I was a kid. I used to put cologne on my itchy spots when I got desperate. I wonder if there's some science behind either of those methods.
DeleteYes, at least behind the hot spoon. The stuff that the mosquito (and bees and wasps too) put into your body is not heat stable, and if you put on a hot spoon (or as I do uses a thingy called BiteAway) you will decompose these compounds, thus making the sweling and itch go away.
DeleteSorry for my un-medicinic an un-tecnical explanation. I can do much better in Danish ;)
That is fascinating! I wonder who came up with that solution? I almost want to get a mosquito bite so I can check it out! Not totally, but almost :)
DeleteIt was a great explanation, by the way. Could not have been clearer.
Hilarious post dear Jenny :)))
ReplyDeleteyou treated the topic exquisitely !
mosquito are incredibly dangerous tiny creatures sometimes even more worse than lion or snake
i too do not feel hesitate kill them specially when concerns are about my kids health
Your poem is FANTASTIC :) the last line made me laugh
yes ,this is the only killing which does not stimulate my compassion
Thank you for sharing such important information about the EASY ways of killing mosquitoes lol So much fun indeed!
hope your summers are going smoothly my dear friend and spring is cherishing you more than ever !
Hugs!
Certainly in many parts of the world mosquitoes are more than just a nuisance. Even here in Canada, we now have West Nile disease that's spread by mosquitoes. All the diseases that are spread by them are no laughing matter, are they?
DeleteThe weather is starting to warm up here, but it will never be as hot as your country! Hugs to you, too, my friend :)
Woe to any mosquitoe than comes near me...I have no mercy...none. Has anyone determined if they serve any useful purpose on earth? Mail huh? Sounds like fun.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I've read mosquitoes are useful for is feeding frogs and bats :)
DeleteLol. It is the start of mosquito season here. It’s been too cold to this point. There are benefits of a cold spring.
ReplyDeleteYes, the spring has been lovely and free of skeeters, hasn't it? :)
DeleteMosquitoes nibbled on my ankle the other night and I have been itching since. I could have used the spoon to kill it and some tequila to forget the Agony of de-feet
ReplyDeleteRe-purposing the memes! I love it :)
Deleteyour poem is whole truth. i wonder what the world looks like from a mosquito's perspective.
ReplyDeleteI think it might look like one big banquet, to be honest :)
DeleteWe are pretty fortunate here as our city has a great control program for mosquitoes. We are vigilant about screens for our house so rarely have the little beggars in the house.
ReplyDeleteYep, most people have screens here, too. We used to have a problem at our cottage because the first few years we were there we had no screen doors, yet we had to have the doors open for cooling. I was so glad when we finally got screens.
DeleteAlberta has quite a bit of West Nile, does it not? We'll probably be facing that in a few years as well.
Love your poem and I could not agree with you more when it comes to those evil little creatures!
ReplyDeleteFor something so small, they really ring big alarm bells, don't they? :)
DeleteGreat poem. Mosquitoes are horrible because they think I'm delectable. They bite the heck out of me. All I have to do is walk out my front door and go to my car in the driveway--I can get half a dozen bites in the two minutes it takes to lock the door and get in the car. Very funny way to kill them, but I think it's better for me to have the tequila when I have bites. I really need to start drinking again.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
That sounds like the mosquitoes here in swampy areas. My husband and I had to walk home through an area like that at dusk once, and it was not something I'd want to do regularly. Or ever again, actually :)
DeleteLOL, no, don't start drinking again; you'll make all the mosquitoes drunk too! :)
Once upon a time mosquitoes didn't care that much for me. Now I'm a buffet dinner. What happened??? They are such annoying little pests. Most of the bugs I find indoors have a huge chance of being trapped and placed outdoors unharmed (if the cats don't get them first, but not mosquitoes. I'm not a nice person with them!
ReplyDeleteThat's strange, isn't it? Have you switched shampoo or something like that?
DeleteNo, mosquitoes don't fall into my "trap/release" guidelines either :)
I was just perusing the books you've read in 2019. You have a lot of great ones there, but what did you think of Oryx and Crake? I think Margaret Atwood is an excellent writer, but I just didn't get Oryx and Crake. I think you've mentioned before that you like Philippa Gregory, or else I know it from looking at your list. Several years ago for Christmas my daughter gave me an autographed Philippa Gregory book. I have a feeling I've told you this before, but you know how dementia is. I'm excited every day by the same old things. We read quite a few of the same books without even planning it in advance.
ReplyDeleteLove again,
can't think of my name
Your dementia comment reminds me of a card I saw; it says "We'll be friends until we're old and senile . . . and then we'll be NEW friends!"
DeleteOryx and Crake - I didn't think it was as good as some others of Atwood's writing, but since I like just about any dystopian fiction, I felt it was worth the time for me. It certainly didn't live up to the hype at the time it was published. Some of her other books have had more substance, in my opinion, such as Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin.
Philippa Gregory - I liked the first few books I read of hers, but then it seemed like they were all very similar. I'm just picking them up as I see them at the second-hand store, so I haven't read them in order. She has a distinctive style/voice for her historical fiction, doesn't she? A lot of repetition of characters' thoughts, for instance, which I liked at first but then found it starting to be annoying :) But her books did make those times in history more clear in my mind's eye - the flavour of court life and the power struggles behind the pretty facades. Is there anything by her that you particularly like and would recommend? Does she write other genres? An autographed book is always very cool!
Janie. Your name is Janie Junebug. Yer welcome :D
Generally speaking I let t he creepy crawlies live but flies, mozzies and cockroaches are fair game!
ReplyDeleteI actually really love the spoon trick, it works for me every time
Oh, flies, yes - I don't have any pity for them either :) I've never dealt with cockroaches and may that be ever so, lol
DeleteMotherOwl commented that the spoon trick works, too, and gave an explanation as to why - it's good to know a way to deal with the itchiness.
Pests get what pests deserve, that's how i see it.
ReplyDeleteThere's a silly little poem over here.
Pests, indeed!
DeleteThanks for joining in again this week, Mimi!
We don't have mosquitos over here and the only times I come into contact (or they come into contact with me) is when we go abroad on holiday. They seem to seek me out, ignoring the closest blood bank (ie my husband) to sink their needles into me. My husband generally comes home relatively free of bites whilst I am covered in them. That's hardly cricket, chaps! (LOL)
ReplyDeleteNot at all fair, is it? That seems to be just another of their bad habits, though - picking on some people and leaving others alone!
DeleteMOSQUITOES
ReplyDeleteIn wartime
Lies become truth
Clerks become soldiers
Friends become enemies
Factories become targets
Wives become widows
In wartime
Tanks trundle down country lanes
Losses become military gains and
Mosquitoes become fighter planes
I really like this one, YP. And it's all so true - unhappily so.
DeleteThanks for joining in again this week.
A hopeful view based on a recent science story.
ReplyDeleteI've left a longer comment on your post, Infidel. Thank you for the link and the poem.
DeletePeople, you need to check out Infidel's post linked above!
Bahahaha!!! Your poem is fabulous! I admit to the same hypocrisy. I'll ruthlessly (who is Ruth, anyway...?) slaughter mosquitos and ants, and aphids on my plants, but anything larger than that is safe. (Mostly. Unless that wascally wabbit eats my garden veggies... just kidding. Mostly...) ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe 'spoon burns' thing made me laugh! Heating up a mosquito bite DOES actually take the itch out; but it took me a while (and a few burns) before I figured out that the secret is to put hot water in a mug and only apply the hot mug to the mosquito bite when the water has cooled enough that you can gulp a big mouthful without burning your tongue. That's my free tip of the day, for what it's worth. Now if only I could figure out how to prevent them from biting me in the first place... :-)
That's a great tip; I was wondering how to judge the amount of heat that would be safe - thank you.
DeleteI think the wascally wabbit is pretty safe :D
Love the mosquito poem. I like to write doggerel myself, stuff that rhymes. As Robert W Service said, he was not a poet, he was a Rhymster. Cowboy poetry falls into that genre
ReplyDeleteDoggerel is poetry too! (I have to believe it because I think an awful lot of mine falls into that category)
DeleteFeel free to submit a poem any Poetry Monday, TBF - it doesn't have to be about the topic of the day. We provide the topic just to make life easier :)
Oh, there is nothing worse than hearing that high-pitched whine in the night while lying in bed. Having grown up in Florida, I know all about mosquitoes! (I always thought we had them worse than anyone, but now I see that they're pretty much all over the planet.)
ReplyDeleteYes, and they're not just a nuisance in many places - they're deadly. I expect they're pretty thick in Florida with the conditions there.
DeleteThe skeeters are out in full force here in Idaho. I don't give them much thought because they are tiny compared to the ones we dealt with in Alaska. Hope you haven't been bugged either this week.
ReplyDeleteNow I need to look up what kinds of mosquitoes they have in Alaska! Have a great weekend, Mr. S.
DeleteHah!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the two funny comics! They both brightened my day. In my neck of the woods, we have had significantly above average rainfall, which has resulted in a significant upsurge in the density of those horrific beasts. I share your pain!
PipeTobacco
They're bad enough in a regular year without even more rainfall to provide breeding areas, eh? Hope you have lots of mosquito repellent, PT :)
Delete