Mosquit-oh-my-god! I'm PEST-rified!

So, there I was.
I finished the novel I've been pouring over for the last couple days, smoked my last cigarette of the evening, text-messaged the boy to say goodnight. All that was left of my exhausting day was the requisite washing of the face and brushing of the toothoids. I got up out of bed and shuffled to the sink.

So, there he was.
It's not every day that I'm faced with an insect in the safehaven of my own home, and certainly not often that said insect is the size of my own clenched fist. This mosquito was so large that I immediately named him Maximus. Or Claudio. Maybe Mosquimoto... but that's neither here nor there. This was a bug so intimidating , the only way it could have possibly gotten into my house was by dressing up like a door-to-door vaccuum salesman, ringing the doorbell, and then buzzing in, knocking over my roommate. I figure that its next step was to hide out in my bathroom until my guard was down. If he had his way, you'd be reading about my death in tomorrow's headline: "Serial Blood Sucker Strikes Again!" I'm just lucky the damn thing didn't fly out from behind the bathroom door, shout "BOO!" and then make off with my purse.
I was certain that this thing could have drained me of all the blood in my body faster than I could chug a Bud Light. I wasn't so worried about a few pesky, itchy bumps as I feared it flying off into the night carrying my children. For that, Dracula must die. I must wage in hand-to-wing combat. I must gain the respect of tabloid readers all over the world by slaying the real chupacabra!
My first reaction was to run for my life. The odds were already against me- although we'd both be in the same weight class, he's got three times as many limbs as I do, not to mention the whole flying thing. He can suck blood and implant disease- what the hell can I do, aside from flinging a shoe?

So, there we were.
He bobbed and weaved like Ali.
I flailed and swung like a mental patient on an acid trip doing the hokey-pokey.
He feigned disinterest and flew up into the shutters high above my shower.
I clenched my teeth, channeled Schwartzenegger, and hopped in the tub. Balancing precariously on the rim, I jabbed at the shutters with my weapon of choice- an Old Navy Flip Flop- taunting my enemy to come out of hiding and prepare to meet his doom.
That sly fucker waited, bid his time, until I tried to gain more altitude by shoving the ball of my right foot onto a ledge about waist high on the shower wall. He had the patience to hide out until I hoisted myself up.
He dive-bombed me like a kamikazi.
I screamed like a girl.
With one foot on the tiny projection from the wall, one hand on the windowsill, and the other hand gripping both my sandal and the top rail of the sliding-glass shower door, I had a limited range of motion and no balance to free up a hand to swing with. I'm not sure if karate kicking a bug with one dangling limb was the greatest idea, but it was all I could do.

So there I was,
shreiking, swinging like Tarzan, practically bicycling midair in my shower, thinking that I have sunk to a new low. Anyone who knows me can guess how the story ends: of course I fall. Of course, I laugh.

And of course, Mosquimoto flew into the kitchen, opened up a beer, and started making himself a sandwich.


(i totally yoinked that image from a google search. mad props to whomever created it... http://www.delarge.co.uk/dv/mosquito.gif)