Jun 20 2001
Off!
Although I usually assume that I am right in practically any situation, it’s always nice to have this belief reinforced by scientific fact. Ever since I was a little girl, mosquitoes have enjoyed my blood with the fervidness of an oenophile given a rare bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild in the Mojave Desert. My parents used to say, “If the mosquito children are good, they get Suzy for dessert.” This problem still plagues me, and now I know why: mosquitoes, like many men, can’t resist blondes! We may not have more fun, but we are more irresistible to blood sucking insects.
There seem to be more mosquitoes in San Francisco in the past couple of years than there were before. Hardly any houses or apartments in the city have window screens, since there’s a myth that there are no bugs here. It’s the same kind of thinking that has led to little or no insulation or reasonable heating in houses and apartments. Our apartment has no insulation and laughable baseboard heaters in the livingroom and bedroom, which we never use because they a) use up a ton of power and produce little heat; and 2) make everything smell like hot dust.
Getting back to the mosquito problem, I am very glad to see that a spider has been patiently building and re-building her web in the corner of our bedroom window over the past week or two. The window opens from both the top and the bottom, which is very useful when you have curious cats. So the web is undisturbed by us, and I hope she catches as many of those blonde-loving mosquitoes as she can eat!