Fighting Humanity's Battles One Arthropod at a Time

I was woken up at around half one this morning by a plague of mosquito bites on my hairy, yet fragile, little body. I had a bite on my right shoulder, on top of my right foot, on the index finger of my left hand, near the back of my neck, and on my - surprisingly hairless - ass. Aside: When I say I am hairy, I mean I AM HAIRY. While the hairs on my chest tend to accumulate centrally to lead a happy trail to my frontal nether regions, the ones on my back are scattered haphazardly so as to form a diorama of a prehistoric jungle of giant ferns. To make matters even more complicated, I have absolutely no hair on my ass. For all intents and purposes, I look like a baboon. But I digress…


I thought, at first, to pull the blanket over my head and just go to sleep that way, but it proved to be a futile idea. I was itching like an ape with fleas, and there would be no way to keep all my appendages within the confines of my rudimentary “blanketent” at any one given time (it’s not that I have a huge body – I have a really small blanket). Also, the fucking mosquito had managed to find its way under the blanket, which I discovered, much to my chagrin, as it mockingly buzzed past my ear. It was war.


I got up, and turned the lights on. I was naked, it was humid and the strong October breeze was blowing the curtains in patterns that were ever so grotesque. Man against mosquito, Primate against Diptera, Cordate against Arthropod – this never-ending battle had gone on for far too long, the line had to be drawn somewhere, and it was I who drew it!


It wasn’t easy. My enemy, 1/200th my size, proved to be a wily, and cunning, foe. I spent the first twenty minutes trying to locate the little fucker, flailing my arms about arbitrarily to disturb it from its foxhole, shaking the blanket like the mad man on a mission that I was, ruffling the curtains. Eventually, I spotted the heinous beast perched atop my black, iron headboard. “Clever boy,” I thought. Approaching it with the gracefulness of a lioness on the prowl, I SWATTED the little shit, using a small cushion, with the rage of a horny rhinoceros. Not only did it get away without problems, it had also succeeded in tricking me. So blinded was I with wrath that I did not notice the two spikes of the headboard that managed to skewer my right hand, which avoided two most gross punctures thanks to that most trusted of man's ancient weapons - the ornamental pillow.


I was hurt, but, thankfully, I was finally awake – both literally and figuratively. In order to prevail, my head needed to be calm. I squinted my eyes like a night hawk and continued to scan the battlefield. I looked everywhere – behind the door, under the bed, on the closet. It had vanished. I rubbed my hand through my hair in frustration when, through the corner of my eye, I noticed my white whale fly away hastily from behind me. Like Han Solo in Empire, it had decided that the best way to hide from a behemoth would be to park behind it. However, it had not counted on such an involuntary reflex. The time had come: this was my O.K. Corral.


Beleaguered, my bitter rival hobbled on to the wall, and I swatted it with a respectful slap that left a fine, circular spot of blood, mine and his together, on the concrete. I was elated, but also underwhelmed. I think Fred Ebb said it best:

When it all comes true
Just the way you planned
It's funny but the bells don't ring
It's a quiet thing.


It was awfully quiet as I laid back on the bed. I turned the lights off, and pulled the blanket over my chest. I closed my eyes to say a quick prayer for my fallen foe, when it all became clear to me. I had been so foolish. Tears had already started running down my cheeks way before the buzz subsided. Dear Lord in Heaven – there had been two of them!