The Narrowed Lens: Monsiuer Mozzie

bzzz....bz...bzzzzzzz...bzz...bzz...BZZZZZZ...bzz...*...*...*

Unable to take it anymore, Todd swings his feet to the floor and flips on one of the single bulb fixtures.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“4:45,” came his reply. That’s AM, now.

He starts shaking the floor length curtain in hopes of finding the source of the buzzing that has kept us both awake for nearly 45 minutes. It’s not the buzzing of a bee or a wasp; it’s this tiny, faint, in and out buzzing, much higher up the scale. Well, it’s tiny and faint one minute and the next it sounds like it’s making its way down your ear canal. But then, it vanishes. Gone.

We both wait in silence. For such small pests, Mozzies (as we’ve heard them called in South Africa, never once before in our lives) have a way of interrupting even the most vital human functions (like sleep, for instance). I can only imagine what we look like to them; laughing, talking, carrying on with whatever we do and then all of a sudden-- FREEZE! Eyes shift, roaming about the room for the infinitesimal gray blur. We slowly spread our hands, palms facing in...not too fast now; no sudden moves. Wait for it, *CLAP* *CLAP CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAP CLAP CLAP*...nothing. It evades our best efforts to capture (ahem...annihilate) it and succeeds in, once again, making us look like applauding idiots.

So we wait. Motionless, quiet, irritated. Wherever he’s vanished to, he won’t be gone long. We both know it’s over for us; we have to be up in half an hour at this point. Finally, I throw off the covers (this wasn’t necessary, as you’ll see below, but it was probably too hot for them anyway).

“Here,” I offer, “we can use me as bait.”

As a child (and teenager, and apparently adult) I used to get the absolute nastiest looking legs in the summer. All it would take was a few minutes playing outside in the evening and I’d return covered in huge, pink welts. And I have never been able to resist scratching itchy mosquito bites. I can still remember the smell and envision the bottle of stinky calamine lotion under our bathroom sink; I would just about have to coat my legs with the thick pink goop. And then it was “don’t scratch!” from my mom, but I always did. I’d end up all gross and scabby, year after year.

I really did think those days were behind me, but somehow the South African Mozzies (and these guys mean business) have heard of me. All my life I’ve been told by people who would observe my bitten flesh that I must taste sweet. I used to think it was just something said by condescending old people trying to be funny, but I’m starting to think about it a bit more seriously.

The other night I woke up scratching my legs and the next morning counted either 5 or 6 new bites; not exactly an evening run through knee-high grass, but ridiculous for doing nothing but sleeping under a sheet! And here’s the kicker; Todd checked his legs and could only find one little pink spot, not a welt, a spot. I investigated and determined (by means of professional experience) that it was definitely not a mosquito bite. Unbelievable! The man sleeps like 10 inches away from me and gets nothing! It would appear that I’m considered a delicacy by Mozzies, irrespective of continent. Both US and African mosquitos prefer me to other humans in close proximity.

The old people were right...I must really taste sweet.