Lately, Toby and I have had spike in mosquito bites. It seems every morning there are more and more bumps. And they itch. They itch like nothing I have ever experienced before. Every day we wake up with new ones. Last week, Toby had three on his eyelid. This week I have several on my chin. My arms take the worst beating. But I even have one on my palm, now that’s one desperate bastard.
It’s not uncommon for Toby to wake me up slapping himself in the face. I imagine this is because he can hear and I can’t or else I’m sure I’d be slapping myself in the face as well. The beasts swarm around him, and he can HEAR them circling. He knows there coming to drink his blood and so his arms start to flail.
SLAP SLAP SLAP!
SHIT! DAMN! SHIT!
SLAP SLAP SLAP!
And I’m awake. And it’s 3 in the morning. And my husband is slapping himself again. It doesn’t help our already inexplicable inability to sleep between the hours of 3 and 5 a.m.
Last night, at around 3 a.m., the natives became restless again. I woke up scratching my arms. I had been scratching for a long while, because 3 of my 15 new bites were already reaching new volcanic heights. Toby was awake as well, slapping himself silly. We lay there bitching. We lay there helpless.
bzzzzz bzZZZZZ Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jesus H. Christ! I HATE THIS!
I know, honey. I know. I’m so sorry.
bzzzzz bzZZZZZ Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bzZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz
I can’t live like this.
SLAP SLAP SLAP!
bzZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZZZZBzzzzzzz
That’s it!!!! I can’t take it anymore. Turn on the light.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I hadn’t made a plan just yet. I figured I could find and destroy the little bitch even if it was 3 a.m. and he had the upper hand being a miniature vampire and all, living at night and all. Toby flipped on our light as he staggered out of our room and into the bathroom to pee. I looked around at our white walls. And that’s when I saw them.
We didn’t have one mosquito. We didn’t even have 5 or 7. There were AT LEAST 25 mosquitos in FULL VIEW staring back at us, waiting to eat our hands, our heads, our faces. They were EVERYWHERE. I can’t make that any clearer. I have seen less bugs dead on a blue deathlight.
I freaked. I have heard this expression used before, I have even it said it before, but up until last night I didn’t know what “I FREAKED” meant. Last night, I met Freaked. I Freaked out with Freaked. You might say I lost my shit.
Toby came back into the room and I began to point. I was horrified. I wanted to point to Everywhere – because they were Everywhere. But I’m not sure you CAN point to everywhere all at once. So I just pointed.
Toby, look at them all! Look at them! I can’t beleive my eyes!
I’m not sure when it happen, but I was crying. He walked towards me to give me a hug. And then we began to kill them. We spent about 15 or 20 minutes, him with a broom, me with a shoe, killing mosquitos like it was our late night job. Killing mosquitos with watery eyes isn’t easy. As a matter of fact it’s downright impossible. So I guess it’s a good thing there were so many of them, because basically everywhere my shoe landed, a blood splatter formed on the wall below.
We killed and then killed some more. Finally, we were both exhausted and I didn’t see any in sight. Toby laid back down realizing in only a few short hours he’d have to leave for work. I was spent and totally itchy.
I wanted to go home.
Today, I’m feeling a little bit better. Even though we have screens, we closed the window in our bedroom to avoid any future uprisings. What I don’t understand is they’re only in OUR room and they’re ONLY eating us. Our guests don’t seem to get bitten, so I imagine they don’t venture beyond our four walls very often. And that’s pretty terrifying. Come to think of it, I can’t tell you how terrifying this experience was or has been. I know I might sound silly, I might sound like I’m over-reacting, but seeing dozens of mosquitos dotting the walls surrounding your once sleeping head is like something out of a Stephen King short story.
Didn’t a little girl die this way?
I’d like to end this post by mentioning just how far I’ve come along the road towards accepting life here in San Francisco. Say this had happen during the dark days I would have packed my bags and booked a flight for home. I was so fragile back then – my mental state – surely these little beasts would have driven me out of my home.
Maybe back then I was just looking for an excuse all along.
When we first moved here, people told me that there are no bugs in San Francisco. Some said that’s why there are no screens. (We do have screens). A few others said that it DOES rain from time to time and that the weather “isn’t always like this”. Other people told us to be very careful about the mosquitos. Some say it will be nice this September, some say it will rain. Still others say it will stay very much the same. I know that people are being nice and offer up help and suggestions in order to make our stay here a better one, so I am not for a second complaining about the knowledge we have been given. But I do get conflicting San Francisco reports regularly. And for a while I was putting them all together and trying to sort them out using my very own logic and history. But I give the hell up. I surrender. I have found that in San Francisco there isn’t much I’d consider to be predictable except for the fog and my inability to find a decent job.
I guess you could say I believe in the fog.
Mihow 
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