By Ryan Parker
War on mosquitoes
War seems to be one of the hot topics on the political circuit right now, but I’m not going to rattle off the ten billion reasons why we should NOT start some shit with Iraq. Instead, I propose we do fight another war, a different kind of war. This will be a war unlike any other, a war where the enemy cannot always be seen. Wait we’re already kind of in a war like that. Anyway, I’m talking about the war on mosquitoes.
Their forces are quietly amassing in many moist areas in the U.S., and it is our sovereign duty to find and seek out these insects, for they carry a virus, the West Nile virus. This thing is pretty serious too. I mean, it’s like the second freaking coming of the Black Death. It’s already claimed one victim in this state alone (four victims this year overall).
Now before I reveal the victim’s age, think to yourself and guess his age. OK? Ready? Eighty-four. Shocker. Not in a million years would any of us have guessed that a West Nile victim was within twenty years of eighty-four.
No sir, not me. I bet you didn’t guess that the victim had previous health problems either. Apparently a new link has been discovered between smoking, heat, and said virus: they’re only harmful to children and the elderly.
That’s pretty sweet news to all our ears, I can tell you that. We’re past those dangerous child years and far from those extremely perilous elderly years. I remember being terrified of going outside when I was a child terrified of heat stroke.
One sniff of smog alert and I was inside playing video games. Think of the elderly as well. Old man Jenkins wakes up for a morning stroll to play chess in the park.
He puts on his long pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and a sweater, completely unaware of the fact that he has dressed improperly for the weather. They really should have some kind of warning for heat; I don’t know, maybe a weather forecast or something. Perhaps some type of correlation between the time of year and temperature expected seasons, that’s what they’re called. I knew I’d remember, even in my accelerated age.
Oh! Right, about the mosquitoes. It’s a sad circumstance when we’re losing the cream of our crop to a few measly mosquitoes, isn’t it? Well, it’s high time we did something about it. I’m not gonna let some bloody insect ruin my day, or my life for that matter (especially not a foreign insect). That’s why we have to fight these monsters. They’ve claimed upwards of two dozen lives since the discovery of their West Nile virus three years ago, two dozen of our finest eighty-pluses.
This isn’t just an attack on our country or our people; it’s an attack on freedom itself. The very balance of the universe depends upon the course of action we take against these six-legged fiends. Yes, there are trucks spewing some sort of mosquito repellant or pesticide out the back in several states, but is this all we’re willing to do for our safety?
I propose something much more drastic and infeasible. First, there should be checkpoints at state borders and government buildings. Anyone found or suspected of being bitten by a mosquito will then be quarantined so that the spread of the virus might be mitigated.
Second, we must find where the mosquitoes breed and train their bloodsucking brethren. These places, called nests or cells, must be destroyed at all costs.
Also, we should freeze their assets, air and water. If we can control the most abundant resources on the planet, we can control mosquitoes and contain what threatens to be the plague of the twenty-first century.
