Random Thoughts on Mosquitoes

My palms hurt. I think I bursted a few capillaries when I tried to kill a impudent mosquito that actually zoomed in front of me in its moment of recklessness. Well, I missed. And as a result, I am declaring war on the brazen pests. A monkey does not tap dance in front of a lion without incurring consequences--a new Aesopian idiom. I just made that one up.

Anyway, I shouldn't be writing about mosquitoes in November because it is supposed to be cool and breezy, sunny and dry. It's the weather I've been holding my breath for in the last six months. But it's not happening. It seems the earth has decided to do a 180-degree about-face and march straight back to spring, the miserable, soggy, damp, sticky, and mosquitoful season in Hong Kong. I made up that last adjective, too. There ought to be a word like that in the dictionary:

mosquitoful, adj. -ly: 1. descriptive of an ambient environment so saturated with moisture and warmth as to be prime breeding ground for mosquitoes that can simply lay and hatch eggs in mid-air; 2. descriptive of a closed space swarming with mosquitoes forever in a feeding frenzy, as in I sat alone in my mosquitoful living room.

As to mosquito warfare, there are many proposed weapons available over a wide range of prices. They can be categorized as follows: chemical, technological, aromatherapeutical (I made that one up, too, just to rhyme with the other words), mechanical, and of course, physical.

We all know that chemical solutions (bug sprays) work, but they also do harm to humans. So I have to try other methods first and only resort to these when all else have failed.

I will start with the technological, since it promises to be the most civilized and most effective. After all, we all love technology, don't we? Who doesn't get a tingle of happiness when they hear the word "hi-tech"? It just so happens that the technological is the costliest of the solutions. And sadly, they don't work. When we first came to Hong Kong, people told us to buy these high-frequency wave emitters that will keep mosquitos out without any harm to humans. We made a family expedition in search of these wonders and eagerly bought a couple, in spite of the high price tag--they were about $50USD each. Well, the only thing they did was light up a tiny red LED and make a high-pitched buzz. No mosquitoes were driven from the house. I finally unplugged them and left them to collect dust.

Disappointed and desperate, we opted for the opposite end of the spectrum, the low-tech solutions. Bug zappers. You can find them in Chinese five-and-dime stores all over the world. They look like short-handled tennis rackets, except the strings are metallic and are connected to a couple of size-C batteries. Anything that comes into contact with the strings will get a serious shock. Well, these do work, to a limited extent. There's that great sense of accomplishment when we zap our first mosquito. Yes, it feels great. And this is really cool, too: when you drop your electrocuted mosquito down the toilet, it swirls really fast in the water for nearly a minute. I suppose the chemistry majors among you can explain this phenomenon quite satisfactorily. The problem is, each racket only works for a couple of times. I guess one cannot expect a racket that only costs $5 (plus the batteries) to last more than a couple of zaps. Sooner or later, something gets shorted, and it stops working. Given that each one kills an average of 2 mosquitoes, that means each mosquito is costing me $2.50 to kill. My low-tech, five-and-dime-store solution doesn't seem so economical any more. And this does not take into account the greater problem of having to dispose of a stack of dead, good-for-nothing rackets that can't function as sporting equipment or anything else useful.

Having exhausted our technological solutions, I turned to the aromatherapeutic ones: scented oils. They seem less harmful than bug sprays, but I'm not entirely convinced that they are perfectly safe. Somewhat cheaper than the wave emitters, these oils can be warmed through a wall plug, and they emit scents that will repel insects. Unfortunately, they are as useless as the wave emitters. After a while, I unplugged these as well and left them beside their high-tech competitors to collect dust. By now, it's clear to me that mosquitoes are impervious to sounds or smells.

The only obvious courses left to me are the old-fashioned methods of smashing them with my hands (the physical solution), if I'm fast and have the hand-eye coordination of a ninja, and spraying (chemical). Wait a minute, you say, what about the mechanical method you mentioned? Well, there is one other, rather unconventional way for ridding mosquitoes, only brought to my attention recently. It is called the Mosquito Killing Device, invented by my eleven-year-old son. It consists of a flat box with a lid that can open and shut like a clam. A strap attached to the lid fits one's thumb snugly so that a person holding the device with one hand can quickly slam down the lid when a mosquito comes close. Inside the box are a handful of pebbles. Once a mosquito is trapped inside, you can shake the box vigorously until the mosquito dies from dizziness or stoning. Because the box is much larger than one's hand, the probability of trapping a mosquito is significantly higher than merely smashing them with bare hands. The best part about this machine is that it is made of a see-through material so that you can watch the mosquito being smashed. Okay, that sounds a bit gruesome. I am really quite kind and sympathetic towards all God's creatures great and small, with the exception of mosquitos, ants, and cockroaches. The device has cost me nothing, and this week it has managed to kill two mosquitos--better than any of the costly solutions so far, and better than my bare hands, which have smashed none, and, as I mentioned, are hurting at the moment.

Ian's humble but effective Mosquito Killing Device

Anyway, I did say that a war has been declared, right? A massive exhaustive solution is called for when we're dealing with a warfare, not just a one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat. I want that puny mosquito that eluded my grasp this morning to know its insolent behavior will cost its comrades many lives. And yes, I am resorting to a chemical solution, but thankfully, I have found a spray that is "bio-degradable" and poses "low-toxicity" to humans and animals. Though by tomorrow the weather will be just as humid and  dreary as today, our mosquitoful house will be, hopefully, mosquito-free.