Mosquitoes

One time when we were camping in Quebec, Canada I observed some Canadian mosquitoes walking on the top of our sleeping bag.  They were trying to “drill down” and find flesh underneath.

One of the boys that were with us had a sleeping bag that was of lighter weight.  To avoid the mosquitoes he moved into the car for the night.  He left the window down about an inch for air.  The next morning we asked him if the mosquitoes didn’t come in during the night.  He replied: “No, their bills were too long.”

On another occasion I was working on a job requiring the installation of wiring, circuitry, etc. for an X-ray machine in a clinic.  The crew that does the actual installation of the X-ray machine is made up of specialists.  They will travel from one job site to another as employees of the X-ray machine company, solely working on X-ray machine installations.

Though mosquitoes can be problematic at certain times of the year when doing electrical work on poles, signs, outdoor lighting and the like, they are certainly no problem when installing an X-ray machine.

The two boys installing the machine were from Minnesota.  (I had lived in Minnesota for a short period of time.)  These boys were complaining about the flat prairie in Montana.  They said that Minnesota had rivers and lakes and trees.  I told them that they had plenty of something else in Minnesota, too.  They asked; “What?”

I said: “Mosquitoes.”

At that they said; “We don’t have mosquitoes in Minnesota.”

I replied (sarcastically); “No, you don’t have mosquitoes in Minnesota.”  As I was about to go into some detail about my experiences with mosquitoes in Minnesota, one of them cut in quickly and said; “Last year I only saw two mosquitoes in Minnesota.  They were flying overhead with a calf between them.  One said to the other one; ‘When we get done with this one, let’s go back and get the big one.’ ”

I was just about ready to believe them.

At the very least, I couldn’t top that story.