Freewrite: Mosquitoes

The dream vacation... We were off to Belize, years of dreaming, planning, saving, scheming coming to fruition at last! We had taken up scuba diving, and this was the biggest reef we expect to ever see. Australia is just not in our scope of possibilities, so we were STOKED about this trip!

We had been warned of dengue fever and malaria, so we bought the pure Deet. Of course, it was liquid so we could not pack in our carry on bags, it had to go into our checked luggage. A long flight that began in began in the snow ended in a tropical sunny breeze. The man who owned the cabin we had rented picked us up at the airport and whisked us away to our bungalow, grabbing our bags and tossing them in the back of his van right off the carousel at the airport.

As he drove us deeper and deeper into the jungle, our driver failed to notice the mosquitoes snacking on us. We swatted a little frantically, wishing we could reach our bags. When we arrived, he opened the door to the little hut and it was literally swarming with them. We watched in awe as he walked right in, not even waving an arm, and plugged something in. We still do not know what little device he had, but those bugs started getting out as fast as they could fly.

We used our deet, LOTS of deet, as we ran around looking at ruins and visiting the village shops and such, but each night we slept in blissful, mosquito-less sleep. I have tried, I cannot seem to find out what that magic device was, but it sure made our vacation MUCH more pleasant!

I have wondered many times over the years why that gadget is not wildly popular, available everywhere... Sadly the only thing I can think of is that no one can make enough money on it. I support free markets and all, but when good products are made unavailable so someone can make money on an inferior product, that is NOT a "free market." That is crony capitalism, a virus even more dangerous than dengue or malaria. Somewhere is a non-toxic very effective mosquito repellent. I can't buy one, you probably can't either. So, we are left to poison ourselves, and now they want to weaponize the bugs themselves. We are told Bill Gates is out to "help" humanity? God help us all! The mosquitoes will probably rule the earth by the time Gates is done "fixing" that problem!