I hate mosquitoes. Plain and simple. They eat me up and leave me covered with huge red bumps. I look like I have some kind of disease. And when you don’t smack them early enough, the bites itch and itch and itch for days, until my legs are a bloody, lumpy mass of skin.
And now my doctor wants me to get tested for West Nile disease.
“If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” – Jonas Salk (paraphrased)
Maybe they hate you even more.
What reason would mosquitoes have for hating me? They started it. I feed them, and if I don’t swat them, they get to live another day and bite another person.
Besides, no one is asking for all the insects to disappear. Just the mosquitoes. And the roaches. But the roaches will never die. They will outlast us all.
Did you know not all mosquitoes drink blood? In fact, there’s a whole genus of them, with eighty-five species, that do not: toxorhynchites. I don’t know if it’s just me, but something about their name makes us believe believe they may be somewhat related to you, Ms. Chintz.