Mosquito sweet man
RESEARCH under way seems to suggest that I am a mosquito sweet man and that I may have to spend the rest of my years living under tons of mosquito love.
So if you see me getting fat, please do not rush to condemn me among the hordes of obese gorging on junk food. That fat, most likely, will be from mosquito love bites.
You see, it seems that mosquitoes prefer to bite some people over others and I am among those they rank as sweet men.
The experts say mosquitoes do exhibit blood-sucking preferences.
“One in 10 people are highly attractive to mosquitoes,” reports Jerry Butler, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Florida in the United States.
Now hear this.
The webMd website says it’s not dinner they’re sucking out of you. “Female mosquitoes — males do not bite people — need human blood to develop fertile eggs. And apparently, not just anyone’s will do”, it reports.
It adds: “Although researchers have yet to pinpoint what mosquitoes consider an ideal hunk of human flesh, the hunt is on.”
And I just happen to be among the sweet man targets those horny female mosquitoes are fighting over.
“There’s a tremendous amount of research being conducted on what compounds and odours people exude that might be attractive to mosquitoes”, says Joe Conlon, PhD, technical advisor to the American Mosquito Control Association.
With 400 different compounds to examine, it’s an extremely laborious process. “Researchers are just beginning to scratch the surface,” he says.
Well, well. Mosquitoes have been around for some 30 million years and the human mosquito experts are still trying to figure them out.
And while they are trying to get to the bottom of the mosquito mystery, I have to endure the attentions of female mosquitoes wanting to multiply.
Mosquito fever is currently almost as pervasive as the World Cup football fever that has infected millions and millions around the world and because of my inherent sweetness I’m not among those immune to the epidemic.
I am among the afflicted so much so that I’m an accomplished mosquito dancer and I can hop and jump and slap parts of my body and dance at the same time. I think I’m so good that I’m beginning to wonder if I can qualify for the `America’s got Talent’ show on the United States NBC TV network.
If I make it to that TV show as `GT Mosquito Sweet Man’, I’ll have to give some credit to Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green.
Even if I don’t make it to Las Vegas, Mr. Green will be able to puff out his chest even more and beam with pride while taking credit for forcing me to finetune my mosquito talent to a dance art.
After all, if Mr. Green and his merry band had been vigilant enough to reduce the mosquitoes to nothing more than an occasional slapping nuisance, I would not have been among those forced to become mosquito dance experts while fighting off the swarms of vicious insects.
Mosquito one, mosquito two, mosquito jump in the de old man shoe…I wonder if any mosquito ever jumped into Mayor Green’s shoes? Maybe, he’s an old time mosquito sweet man because he seems to like having them around in huge numbers.
Mosquitoes are out in force in Winnipeg and the Canadian city is striking back.
CBC News reported yesterday that a 48-hour public notice was issued to announce the start of a fogging programme for the city as well as East and West St. Paul urban areas.
“Big rains two weeks ago, mixed with the heat in recent days, have created a perfect breeding environment for the pesky bloodsucking insects.
The city says the number of mosquitoes has become `intolerable’ and the wet conditions might lead to the worst case of the critters in the past decade”, CBC News said.
Maybe, Mayor Green is planning a secret trip through his `contacts’ to Winnipeg to find out how the fogging is done. After all, it seems that not many people are privy to what’s going on in City Hall, and the goodly Mayor may be working on a trip to Winnipeg for the good of the good people in Georgetown.
I have been planning to help the Health Ministry with its blood donation drive but with so many female mosquitoes after me, I wonder how much will be left.
Maybe the Health Ministry can resume fogging to reduce the numbers feeding on people like me. That could be a big help for the blood donation drive.
In the meantime, I’m planning to buy some more mosquito nets to hang in my living room so that I can watch TV under shelter, and another in the dining room to be able to eat without having to swat mosquitoes, and another on the verandah to get a bit of fresh air when I feel like.
I wonder if I’ll be as lucky enough to attract as much attention from the best of the breed of the female human species.
Maybe I can dazzle them with my GT Sweet Man Mosquito Dance.