Tales from Beneath the Mosquito Net

I have a love hate relationship with my mosquito net. I may lean a little more on the hate side on most days, but I have to still appreciate it ya know? One might think that you just string that bad boy up effortlessly, crawl in, and fall into a bug free sleep! But one would be wrong! #1 A mosquito net is powerless against bed bugs, but that's NOT what this blog is about, as I am unable to share my thoughts and feelings on the bed bug topic (appropriately) at this time.

So back to beneath my net, #1 the typical bug net has four lil eyelet doomaflickies in which to place string in and hang over your bed, sounds good, 4 eyelets, 4 corners, right? Wrong! Because when you hang that bad boy up, the middle sags and as you breathe in netting you feel as though you're in your very own coffin! Not cool!

So let's just say you hang it, you duck tape that middle part up and then you crawl in ... you're set right? X (please make the family feud sound here!) One also needs to know that you must tuck in all ends of the net underneath your mattress as some mosquitos appear to have the intelligence level to come in the floor route!

One might think that at THIS point you're set! (I sure hope your remember you're tucked in before you try to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night because if by chance you don't you could rip down your net entirely and teach your roommates new words in the middle of the night!)

So... after a few uncomfortable nights, you figure out how to properly duck tape, tuck, and to stop all liquid intake around 5pm, you're set, RIGHT?! Well, NO!

Evidently the mosquitos in Haiti have gone to special ops training! First off, some of them sneak in when you get out of bed in the morning and hide out till bed time, so after all your net tucking, you're actually sleeping with the enemy! When you awake, somewhat light headed as you have very little blood left, you find the mosquito barely able to keep himself afloat as his gluttony has caused him a heaviness! Two days ago, I took my sheet, and killed my freeloading, unwelcomed overnight guest! There was so much blood on the sheet that you would have thought I had killed a person or at least a kitten (which I sometimes dream of doing!) Sounds gross to use your sheet for such doesn't it? Trust me, when you're in Haiti, that's all that sheet is good for, if you're using covers you have already contracted Malaria and have bigger problems to worry about!

Oh so you're not impressed, you don't thinking sneaking in at 6am and hiding out for 12 hours is special opps material, that I should have checked more throughly?! Well, then what do you have to say about this?

Last night, I taped, tucked, tinkled, and throughly checked the sheets before entering! I curled into a lil ball and drifted off into a benedryl induced sleep dreaming of (wouldn't you like to know!) Around 1am I awoke to a severe itching sensation on both knees...I wandered into the bathroom for a better visual, to see about 10 mosquito bites on each knee! What could have happened you ask?! Thanks for your concern! Well, there is a skillful art to sleeping beneath the mosquito net, at NO time can any part of your body be touching your net as the special ops trained mosquitos are awaiting. They waited patiently outside my net as I drew my knees upward and they rested barely grazing my cone of silence (we've established that one cannot be addressed while inside their net, it gives us the illusion of privacy!) and yep, they feasted on my exposed knee caps, like the vultures that they are!

Life beneath the mosquito net, well, it requires, grace and poise, brain and brawn, and the ability to sleep directly in the center of your bunk without shifting throughout the night! I'll let you know how that turns out, till then send benedryl, citronella perfumes, and chocolate (I'm an emotional eater!)