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November 3, 2001 snickers Halloween came and went without event.  Unless you count the seedy grandmother who asked for both candy and a bathroom.  I gave her a Snickers. The front door of the Alhambra was opened to distribute candy to more than 100 trick-or-treaters.  In the process, I allowed into my abode approximately 10,000 mosquitoes.  A lot of them stopped to watch "Dawson's Creek" with my visiting daughter and those that did perished from exposure to poor drama.  Those insects who did not watch television flew directly to my bathroom where they hunkered down around drains and faucets waiting for me to retire for the evening.  When the trick-or-treating was over and my daughter returned to her mother's house, I washed up, read and went to bed. No sooner had my breathing slowed than I heard the mosquitoes take off from their bathroom battle-stations and fly toward my bed.  I heard the distinct sound of a Blue Angels' formation splitting and banking for a strike.  I turned on the lamp by my bed hoping to exterminate the entire squadron with a rolled up Rolling Stone magazine.  But the instant the room was illuminated, the mosquitoes vanished!  I turned the light off and lay my head back on my pillow.  Nothing.  I closed my eyes.  Bzzz.  Bzzz. BZZZ!!!  They were back with a vengeance.  I turned the light on again and, again, the insects were nowhere to be found.  This one-sided battle continued all night until I lapsed into a coma from sleep deprivation and blood loss. I am not sure how mosquitoes can strike so effectively under cover of darkness and disappear without a trace when they so much as sense a light particle heading their way.  But if our country is ever attacked by terrorists and we send troops abroad to, say, Buttfuchistan, our Special Op forces would do well to study the mosquito.

©  2001 by the beastmaster