The weather in San Francisco has been balmy. Whenever I don't have to wear a coat at night in this town, I feel like I'm on vacation, so on the whole, I've been a little giddy. Last night, there was also an extravagant sunset during which I was driving home from the Eat Bay, such that I was able to see it stretched over the Bay in a postcard vista.
What with all the excitement, I stayed up too late. I'm reluctant to let weekends go. I'm equally reluctant to waste any time that the neighbors are all asleep and therefore silent. At one point, I was watching some Russell Brand standup on YouTube. Look. I'm not proud of it, but it happened. At nearly 1am, I finally got in bed and almost instantly after turning off the light, I heard the dreaded war cry of a mosquito in my ear. I often forget until it's too late that coatless weather is also mosquito weather.
I leapt into action. Literally. It begins with a lot of frantic hand waving around my face and then there is leaping. Leaping for the light switch. Leaping to the kitchen to collect my mosquito-killing implement. (It's a Swiffer dust mop, in its Clark Kent guise. Long handle, perfectly flat swiveling head. It is a mosquito-killing machine. The thing is, you can find the mosquito on the wall and sort of sneak up on it. You rest the short end of the mop head against the wall under the insect, leave the rest angled out so it casts no shadow, line up your shot, and then--BLAM--swivel the head flat against the wall. I can't tell you how satisfying it is. Particularly after decades of swinging and missing with rolled up magazines. In fact, I should probably pitch this to the Swiffer people. One commercial and their sales will skyrocket. And, presumably, I will also be rich, which I would not find objectionable.)
I did a sweep of the room, but couldn't see it anywhere so, killing machine within reach, dishtowel over my face (what? If you cover everything else up, they totally bite your face. Have you ever had a mosquito bite on your lip? Your eyelid? Well, I have), one bedside light on. Ready, set, sleep!
Trying to sleep while in a heightened state of retaliatory readiness (especially with a towel on your face on a hot night) is not easy. This is one of the many reasons I'm grateful not to be in the Army. Nevertheless, I fake slept and maintained vigilance until around 6am. At no point, to my knowledge, did the mosquito return. But it got in my head, yo. I know it's still in there. And it will try to bite me again tonight. I am both desperately tired and afraid to go to bed.
And that, my friends, is how the terrorists win.
Posts
