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7.07.2009

Skeeters: The Minnesota State Bird

This is unintentionally turning into a week about bugs. Yesterday: spiders. Today: mosquitoes. (Sidenote: I just noticed that the plural for mosquito has an "es" not an "s." Learn something new every day. And in case you want to learn something new: the word mosquito comes from the Portuguese for "small fly." Personally I think it should come from whatever word in Portuguese means "disgusting bug that sucks blood and causes immense itching and buzzes in your ear at night and should die and never come back." But that's just me. Lesson over.)

In Minnesota we love love love our cabins. But I hate hate hate mosquitoes. Unfortunately, the two pretty much go hand in hand since most cabins (including ours) are next to lakes and mosquitoes are born in water. Sweet. See, when I get bitten by a mosquito I don't get a little dot like most people. Noooooo...I get a giant pink welt at least the size of one of those Sacagawea dollar coins that no one ever knows what to do with when they get them as change from a vending machine. Right now I have 7 on my right leg and none on my left so it kind of looks like I dipped one side of my body in a vat of poison ivy but forgot to even it out and do the rest.

An old boyfriend of mine used to tell me that when he went to their cabin his grandpa would sit outside, drinking and smoking, for hours and never got one mosquito bite. He asked him once why they never bothered him and he said, "Well, they know if they bit me they'd die of alcohol poisoning from all the booze in my blood and that's reason enough to stay away."

My dad used to tell me I got bitten so much because I was so sweet. Maybe I should just drink when I plan on being outside...

1 comments:

Andhari said...

It's a perfect excuse to drink. This is clever! I hate mosquitoes too, we have pretty much a lot around here being in the tropic and all.

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