Look before you leap!

Why does one do things that don't make sense? You'd think that as human creatures, we would have learned a long time ago to look before we leap, but why is it that we don't think to look until we're landing no where but in empty space? Aha, yes, that is indeed the time when it occurs to everyone that maybe they should have looked first, as they gaze with a hypnotized stare into the abyss below them. "So that's where that expression comes from," they say, as light dawns on granite head.

And now that I've eased you into a philosophical mood, I now am going to talk about bugs. Yes, bugs. Especially when they're in excess. They're these little annoying things just begging to be victimized, but how is one to go about it? Is it by letting them nonchalantly fly into your mouth, like I did during our softball game a last week?(believe me though, I didn't let the little monster in, he just insisted on entering, heedless of his potentially soggy demise) Do you let them dart onto your eyelid, where you squash them when they have no where to turn? Or go around hoping that they'll wander into your ear and meet up with some toxic earwax? However if you do this there's always the chance that they won't be smothered by your earwax, as the recent story of a guy who discovered he had a spider or two living on his eardrum testifies. Thankfully none of us are that stupid though, to go wandering around cupping our ears in hopes that we'll trap a straying fly inside and kill him humanely. That's probably why mosquitoes have such an annoying whine, because otherwise we might let them make their homes in there.

So, I see a fly (never mind what kind, suffice to know that it was a flying bug) in our mini van, and I have no tools to use with which to swat it with. What would you do? Use the blessed tools that God has given you of course, since there are few swatters more effective than the old-fashioned hand. So, I reach across the car and over Andrew's head (did I mention this was during class trip?) and "SMASH!" Victory is mine. Or is it? Too late, I gaze into the abyss to see the dead creature fixed firmly onto our lovely car ceiling. Nice.

What were you thinking? Clyde basically says to me. "That's like something Andrew would do."

I'm not sure that's a compliment.

So then you suggest that I try to squeeze the bug instead. Well this doesn't always work, since the last time I tried that I successfully snatched the bug out of the air, but after giving a proper hard squeeze I let go and there the fiend just flew away. Grr.

So then the other day a mosquito came whining it's way along and plopped itself on my Norway journal which I was reading. Perfect. This time I was going to play it smart. I didn't want mosquito guts pasted on my journal pages for posterity, so I decided that I would use my hands, and this time I was going to use both of them. Who cares if I get mosquito guts on my hands anyway? People aren't going to be scanning my hands a hundred years from now to find out what I was like (or I hope they're not going to), so it's much better to protect my sacred journal. So, surreptitiously I moved my hands in, palms downward for the kill. Squash goes the dratted little mosque-eat-toe between the sides of my hands.

Whoosh!

Splat!

Squirt!

Splash!

What I'd failed to realize is that this mosquito wasn't searching for a meal. He was simply digesting it.

Ew, gross!

Instead of the squashed black mosquito remains I had so wisely feared upon the precious page of my journal, there lay a big bright red drop of blood (probably mine), not to mention what was on my hands. So now I got both the mosquito and his meal conquered in one fell swoop. Luckily I was able to dab my journal page with a tissue to get the worst of the drop soaked up, but still remains the blood stain to this day and for eternity. So if some day down the road when I'm dead you're reading my journal entry for Monday, May 30, 2005. . . "So we got in the long line to wait. It wasn't very long though, and soon we were going through security, which thankfully didn't have*splat* a long line." You'll know that the *splat* is my famed mosquito kill. I've now preserved the story behind that strange bloodstain for posterity. People will now be relieved to know that I didn't get stabbed in the Oslo airport.

And thus my amazing story ends.