A Really Big Fan

I understand the purpose of honey bees—they make honey. Yum, especially delicious in a tisane sipped on a summer’s night watching fireflies. You see, I even understand the purpose of fireflies from an aesthetic point of view.

Of course, I have to watch the fireflies from inside the house. Why? Mosquitoes. What is the point of mosquitoes? They seem to exist only to spread disease and misery. I will not expatiate on the vileness of the winged insect. I don’t need to because everyone knows how heinous they are. Other than providing food for bats, which is not something to be scoffed at since bats are cool, I can’t see a reason for the existence of mosquitoes. I suspect that they are a result of the curse. When I read between the lines of Genesis 3, I’m sure it’s implied, “and mosquitoes shall bite the tar out of you.” But, that’s not quite true. They bite the tar out of me, not out of Calvin. He can sit outside on the deck for hours during the cool of the day, and they avoid him. If I venture outside an alert goes out to every mosquito in a ten mile radius. It’s like tornado early warning signals or the tsunami sirens I heard growing up in Hawaii. That reminds me, Hawaii doesn’t have mosquitoes. They have heat and humidity, but they also have tradewinds. All the blood-sucking vampire bugs get blown out to sea and die.

What we need is a giant fan. Instead of spending our money on DEET-containing products that probably lead to cancer of various body parts, we could pool our funds and install a giant fan on Missionary Ridge. We could blow the mosquitoes down to Georgia. Or better yet, install a couple of fans and blow the bugs down to Alabama—I don’t have any friends in Alabama.

I’m accepting donations to the Really Big Fan Project. Maybe I could get government funding—no doubt this would qualify under the stimulus plan. Heck, if they can bail out banks, car companies, and maybe the state of California, then I think the Really Big Fan Project should be able to rake in the cash.