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Don’t go outside! It’s a trap!
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Don’t go outside! It’s a trap!
  The way I figure it, none of us needs to worry much about swine flu – or H1N1, as the beleaguered pig farmers would have us refer to it. By the time it gets here, there’ll be nothing left for it to infect. Mosquitoes will have sucked us all dry and left our empty husks blowing about the deserted streets.  The first day I was attacked – Tuesday, I think it was, a couple of days after the big rain – I honestly thought it was just my yard. “I’ve done something horribly wrong,” I thought, my memory flashing back to the time I thought it was a good idea to clean and gut a bunch of fish and put the leftovers on my compost heap (note: this is only a good idea if your compost heap is miles and miles from your house, or civilization). “I’ve accidently left a lake or pond somewhere,” I thought, beating away clouds of swarming, bloodthirsty mosquitoes and searching for their source. There was nothing but the birdbath, and I didn’t think that many of them could have bred in such a small space. It’s the same way when our lights go out. The first thing I do is go out to see if the neighbors’ lights are out, or if it’s something I did, like forget to pay the bill or turn on the microwave and toaster oven at the same time.  It occurs to me I am all too willing to accept blame for things that go wrong entirely without my help. Anyway, I realized it wasn’t just my yard when I saw neighbor after neighbor running for their doors, flailing their arms madly and using colorful language. Everyone I called mentioned the mosquitoes, often using colorful language. At the grocery, everyone was talking about the mosquitoes, and there was more colorful language. So for days and days now I’ve heard and read about swine flu. Where it may have started, where it’s gone, where it’s going, what we should do to get ready for it.  An aside here: Authorities do recommend stockpiling some supplies, like electrolyte drinks, aspirin (remember, only Tylenol® for little kids), tissue, canned food, and I can see the reasoning behind this – if you get sick you’ll need soup and fluids and medicine, and you don’t want to go to the grocery and spread your misery all through the aisles. But a friend wrote me her family had stockpiled things including water and batteries. Really? I asked myself. Batteries? Is that in case so many people get sick that there’s no one left to run the power grids? I said nothing – we must all panic in our own ways. Since our boys were young I personally haven’t felt truly safe unless there’s a backup bottle of catsup in the pantry.  Back to the swine flu media pandemic: I bet you anything, if all those reporters had to do their live shots standing outside here, they wouldn’t be talking about swine flu. No, it would be “mosquitoes this” and “mosquitoes that,” and possibly some colorful on-air language. The really big question at this point is, does the mainstream media have the time and resources to whip us into hysteria over swine flu and West Nile Virus at the same time?  Maybe West Nile Virus is so last year, it will never be mentioned again by the media - like St. Louis encephalitis. I’m finding it difficult to get properly worked up over swine flu, while terrorist mosquitoes are holding my berries and tomatoes hostage. I can pick them, sure, but only at the price of having a pint or so of my blood siphoned off.  These mosquitoes laugh at my long sleeves. They sneer at my Off!®. There are so many of them that, besides being bitten numerous times, I have actually breathed several dozen of them. I need a surgical mask, but the swine flu terror has probably resulted in a worldwide surgical mask shortage by now. I – who haven’t used any chemical preparations in my yard for years, who worry over the groundwater, the bays, the estuaries – I am nearing the point at which I will cheerfully treat my yard with a nice solution of napalm, if it will get rid of the mosquitoes.  There is another story in today’s Weekly Journal in which a mosquito control official says the district has been having trouble controlling them with spraying, because of the high winds. “Spray anyway,” thinks this new, uncaring, unenvironmentally-conscious me – “surely it will kill them somewhere.”  I don’t wish to make light of swine flu. It’s killed people, and made others really sick. We will keep monitoring it (how could we help it?) and posting the latest local news here at The Weekly Journal. I just wish to make a little heavier of the mosquito thing – I think CNN should consider sending Dr. Sanjay Gupta down here to do an in-depth piece on mosquitoes. If for no other reason, because it would amuse me to see him flailing his arms and using colorful language.  |
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