The Unbearable Banishment: Malaria soup

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Malaria soup

I am a menace to the suburbs.

I changed our bank from Citibank to Chase because Citi reduced the reward points on our credit card and I think they’re a sinking ship and it made me nervous to keep our cash there. I had a full box of blank checks that I needed to dispose of. It would have taken too long to shred them, so I did what I did with an old diary of mine; I put it in a bucket and filled it with water. The next day the diary was pulp.

I put the checks in the bucket, filled it with water and promptly forgot about it. That was three weeks ago.

This evening I was grilling chicken and zucchini kabobs and wondered what the bucket was doing in the corner of the yard. I walked over and it was filled with water, paper pulp and mosquito larva. Millions of them. So many that there was barely any wiggle room. It was malaria soup.

Did you know that standing water = mosquito breeding ground? And people say the city is wild, gross and dangerous.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Malaria is probably not a concern. At least, not yet. But West Nile is.

I hope you dumped that bucket out and ruthlessly murdered all those larvae.

Our municipality continually reminds us to make sure all standing water is drained away to keep mosquitoes to a minimum.

There was a neat program here a year or two ago, where they bred and released copious quantities of dragonflies (which, of course, eat mosquitoes). We never really had many dragonflies around here, so it's nice to see them now.

Why didn't you have a fire and burn those cheques instead?

August 16, 2009 at 11:29 PM  
Blogger Sid said...

yeah i knew this about mosquitos but never ever thought of disposing of mosquitos that way.

August 17, 2009 at 2:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In Singapore they have billboards telling you to change the water in flower vases every two days.

And building sites advertise if they are complying with health regulations concerning stagnant water. I've never seen signs like that before in any other country

August 17, 2009 at 4:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

there has to be some sort of play on the "Citi/parasite" theme, but i'm too busy trying to block the image of a bucket full of mosquito larvae from my brain...

August 17, 2009 at 6:49 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Rob: Thanks. I feel much better. Thank heavens it's only West Nile.

Sid: I thought of singing them a lullaby but opted to dump them onto the hot asphalt pavement instead.

Nurse: If New Jersey had bothered to put up a few signs like that, this never would have happened.

Daisy: That's your metaphor du jour.

August 17, 2009 at 7:03 AM  
Anonymous nuttycow said...

I'm still shuddering at the thought.

Why didn't you just burn the cheques?

August 17, 2009 at 7:59 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Nutty: It was awful. The surface of the water was actually "moving" from so many larva. You're right. I shold have put them in the grill, ignited them and cooked the kabobs over the flame.

August 17, 2009 at 8:20 AM  
Blogger savannah said...

ok, now we're on the same page page, sugar! the hazards of suburban living and the sneakiness of it all! mosquitoes, gnats, biting flies, ticks, oh yeah, there's some dangerous shit out in nature! xoxox

August 17, 2009 at 9:16 AM  
Blogger Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open said...

Bleeeuurrghhhhhh, that's 'orrible.

You could always bottle it up and flick the contents at the victims of your cell phone jammer.

(too much?)

August 17, 2009 at 3:40 PM  
Blogger A Free Man said...

So, what'd you do with them?

August 19, 2009 at 10:54 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

AFM: I put 'em on my Rice Krispies and ate 'em for breakfast. That'll teach 'em.

Heh-heh.

August 20, 2009 at 8:06 AM  

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