It was a wet-ish Spring, and now with summer upon us Paul and I are routinely covered in mosquito bites and nurse each other with dabs of clear caladryl lotion. The air was fragrant with Windex and I victoriously scrubbing the bathroom mirror when Paul walked in.

“Didn’t you just do that?”

“Yup, but I got one!” Even if the one I’d killed had not revealed any of my O-, it was one less feasting upon us, and I was feeling a bit full of myself.

The night before, with Blanca, Paul, and Ivan the (recently) Terrible all snoozing peacefully around me, I awaited Morpheus while a veritable Starfleet buzzed about the room, making little reconnaissance flights past my ear while waiting for sleep to render me helpless.

“I’d leave it. Like a warning,” Paul advised. Instantly, I grasped his meaning. This is the stuff that makes our marriage tick.

“Like a head on a pike? Mounted as a warning to others: ‘So endeth all enemies of the Queen!’ I love it! The next one stays.”

And it did, for a week, the next hungry mosquito I slapped against the bathroom mirror was left, slightly gooey and dismembered, stuck to the glass, my version of a head on a pike on Tower Bridge.

I think they’ve taken it as a challenge. Since that day, we’ve bought a citronella plant to sit and smell off-putting on the back porch; a bug-zapper equipped with a mosquito-luring pheromone packet has been installed above the back door, and has quickly become full of the charred remains of unwary flying insects; standing water has been discovered and removed; and yet….. I’ve killed and missed roughly a dozen since. Each day, Paul, or I, or more usually both, count up our bites.

Anyone know of a good sale on caladryl lotion?