Was held captive once again in Florida. Off-season. The Mosquito Coast.
It was the saltmarsh mosquito – the fiercest biter of the 40-plus species found in this county – that for decades hampered Sarasota’s development, leading in 1940 to the establishment of the Mosquito Control District.
Well, they’re outa control now.
The collected elected – campaign slogan: No Bug Too Tough. Or Your Money Back – in their infinite wisdom, gauge the mosquito population by counting the number of mosquitoes landing on a person. During a one-minute period at dawn, when the little nippers are most intense.
Aerial spraying of Bonide, the name comes from the Latin bon- for “good” and -ide for “kill,” meaning either ‘goodkill’ or ‘killgood’, depending on your point of view, I guess. Deep breath, insecticide, costing $4.10 a gallon, is ordered dumped over the landscape when the total number of mosquitoes landing in a minute on a person outdoors at dawn is ten.
A recent count, in a single minute, was 54 aerial bloodsuckers. MCD’s resident expert Dr. Fred Santana advises, “Use a heavy dose of insect repellent when outdoors.”
Most folks hereabouts spend their lives indoors anyway, watching the Wheel Of Fortune channel on the Home Shopping Network.
Last year suicides outnumbered homicides almost two to one in Florida. State song: “Old Folks At Home.” You can look it up. Six Floridians died from chicken pox, three from lockjaw, four from shingles and 108 from obesity. In an average year as many as 300 snakebites are reported here, but only two or three prove fatal.
“More people are killed here by lightning, about twelve annually, or allergic reactions to insect stings than from snakes,” noted a spokeswoman for The State Office of Comforting Information.
And you’re just as lucky to survive.
Matthew Hays, 14, suffered second-degree burns over eight percent of his body when he was hit by lightning on his way home from school. The boy was standing beneath a tree when he was knocked unconscious. He does not remember the bolt hit the right side of his body at the shoulder and exiting through the feet. “Considering his socks and shoes were sort of blown apart,” said Dr. Dan Riggs, an intensive care physician at Tampa General Hospital, “he’s doing remarkably well.”
In 1988, a wolf-hybrid proclaimed “Pet of the Week” by the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society killed a 4-year-old neighbor only two hours after the animal had arrived at its adoptive home.
Here’s an actual Florida headline: FEDERAL OFFICIALS APPARENTLY WILL ALLOW MATING IN THE WILD.
I had no idea the Clinton administration had become so permissive. Not surprised the religious right is so upset.
Here’s another: SNAKES CLOSE GOODWILL STORE.
Attention, shoppers.
And another: I THOUGHT: “WONDERFUL, THIS THING IS GOING TO EAT ME.” Turns out a scuba diver had encountered a 25-foot, two-ton whale shark, which looked like “a Greyhound bus with a fin on it.”
Now, as any ichthyologist worth his saltwater can tell you, the whale shark is normally found much farther south. Reading the sports pages, we learn a surprisingly large number of game fish, historically available only after a long day’s drive south, are being caught off local piers.
Whenever there’s a bizarre unnatural natural event in Florida, about daily, expert opinions are sought. In both cases of fishes sighted far north of their normal habitat, the Mote Marine Laboratory was consulted.
“We don’t know why. We don’t have any theories,” the experts said.
I have a theory. Read my words. Global Alarming.
A layman’s crazy hunch.