Our Very Own Plague of Egypt

We've had to enjoy these days of slightly warmer weather from the safety of our home. The MonkeyFish begs Bill in the morning, "outside? outside? outside?" The MonkeyFish begs me in the afternoon, "outside, outside?" The MonkeyFish begs us both in the evenings when we are all home together, "outside?" He even brings us his shoes and wanders forlornly over to the front door and politely knocks, hoping for some good old outdoors hospitality.

We've opened windows to let in the chilled and deliciously damp April air. But our stints in the great outdoors are heartbreakingly brief. A quick turn around the block, or a power-walk to the mailbox.

And the Monkeyfish has fallen in love with "outside, outside, outside!"

It's hard to watch, and it's getting harder. But we've got a regular plague of Egypt going on out there right now. I'm pretty sure the mosquito to human population ration is 1,000,000,000:1. the community has had to call in the professionals. It's that bad.

It was bad last year. But this year when we open the windows to let a little of the outdoors in, we have to flick the screen to scare off hoards of the little bloodsuckers that hang out on the screens (thank heavens for screens!) and eventually somehow find their way in to MY HOUSE. It's like the birds. I know they know we're in here. They'll wait until our food supply gets low, and then attack when we make a break for the grocery store.


They fly in military circles right outside our front door. If you watch from our little square windows high up on our front door, every once in a while you see one of the ones resting on the door jam fly out to relieve one of the ones cutting those circles. They've got a system.

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that rodents and reptiles don't scare me. Mosquitos do.

Once in my youth, I was babysitting for a neighbor, and she informed me in hush tones that her son's lizzard had escaped its cage and was currently taking residence somewhere in the basement. Her eyes were wide with this secret, and I could tell by the tremble of her mouth that she worried this would be reason enough for me to call off their evening away - but that she desperately needed an evening away, because there was a LIZZARD running loose in her basement!

I told her to have a good time, don't hurry back, and if I saw a lizzard, I'd be sure to cage it for her.

I don't know if she thought I was weird or heroic - but she scooted out the door either way.

And mice? adorable. Even the field mice that scurry around the feet of my cot at girls camp. Even the few and far between mice that managed to get into my parents' house and somehow find hiding places even with my mother's ability to keep things so scrupulously clean. They'd get in, we'd catch 'em, and they'd go out. Mom would inevitably end up on the couch, screaming "RUSSELL!" (even if Dad was at work). Me? I'd consider adopting the poor thing.

I've owned mice, gerbils, hamsters, guinnea pigs, and my share of dust bunnies.

I never bat an eyelash.

But show me an earwig and I'm either going to end up on the couch screaming "BILL!", or I'll watch while I force you to smash the thing to smithereens until I am satisfied that the monstrosity is truly and really killed.

Mosquito's too.

In fact, there can be a mosquito right in front of me, obliviously sitting on the wall, and I will scream for Bill to interrupt his work, come downstairs, and kill it for me. My shoe is lethal enough, but I can't do it. I just can't be involved. Mosquitos and earwigs are just too FREAKY.

Plus, Bill squashes them with his bare hands.

When he does, I try to tell him how manly and heroic he is, but I'm too busy gagging in the other room.

What sends you onto the couch?