True Itch

Unless you tend to fall on your head a lot, you know that for the last few years nothing has been more popular than vampires. Every summer the production studios release at least 12 movies that either star vampires or are written by vampires or are directed by vampires or are seen by vampires. These movies are based on a series of widely-read novels about vampires that were also written by a vampire. HBO airs a popular drama featuring vampires that is also based on a series of novels, but a series of novels that are entirely different from the series of novels that the summer movies are based on and that are written by an entirely different vampire.

There’s no escaping them. Vampires are in our gyms, our offices, attending our law schools and passing our immigration reform. But I don’t understand the appeal. They’re not scary. And it doesn’t help that nowadays vampires want nothing but to be accepted by the rest of society. What the hell is that? Talk about a generation of pansies. In my day, vampires didn’t give a damn if you liked them; you were getting drained of your bodily fluids whether you sent them a Facebook friend request or not.

Not anymore. Now they’re all like, “Why doesn’t anyone love me? I just want to be like a normal person. Then again, I’m bad for you. You don’t want me to bite you and drag you into my world. It’s too much drama. You should find a guy who plays in a band, or that nice Jewish boy who works in the deli. I hear his dad is a dentist. I know, that’s weird that I’d put in a good word for anybody related to a dentist, right? But they’re harmless. I actually try to see one pretty regularly. You wouldn’t believe what I get stuck in my teeth. Your phone? No, I didn’t hear anything. Well, if you have to go, you have to go. Nah, I’ll be alright. That’s ok, you don’t have to come over later. Do what you need to do. I should probably work on that paper anyway. Ok, see you later.”

You know what’s a lot scarier than vampires? Mosquitoes. They suck blood too, but their bites don’t do anything cool like make me immortal. And mosquitoes are unrelenting. At least vampires can be warded off with a garlic necklace, but you could marinade for a day and a half in “bug spray” and be lucky to only have 27 mosquito bites after walking to the mailbox and back.

And evil laughs and bad Transylvanian accents are nothing compared to that buzzing sound from a mosquito that is hovering just outside your ear. So I guess it’s not enough that their itchy bites are annoying, they have to sound annoying too.

Mosquitoes are what send us running inside, fearful of the night. They’re horrifying. So why aren’t there hundreds of best-selling novels about girls falling in love with mosquitoes? Ok, you’re right. That would be stupid. There should be hundreds of best-selling novels about girls falling in love with creatures that are half man, half mosquito. And not just novels, but movies and TV shows as well. We let vampires infiltrate every outlet of entertainment, so that would only be fair.

The hunky, brooding man-mosquitoes could be forced to stay inside during the winter months, thriving only in hot, wet environments. A swarm of lake-living man-mosquitoes could take up a territorial battle against a swarm of swamp-living man-mosquitoes, and the girl-bird who is the love interest of one of the lake-living man mosquitoes could be under the spell of one of the swamp-living man-mosquitoes, so the lake-living man-mosquito has to choose between saving the girl-bird or helping his swarm defend their turf.

Or maybe the protagonist mosquito could fly into a town that’s broken off from the rest of society, and instead of having blood flowing through their veins, the townspeople are filled with some sort of green ooze. Then after biting everyone, the mosquito goes back to his swarm and starts infecting the rest of his colony with a disease given to him by the mutant humans, instead of the other way around. The possibilities are endless.

If we want scary, suspenseful forms of entertainment that are based on even a fraction of reality, then this is the only way to go. When all the kids rush to the theaters next year to watch a big budget movie about sexy, angst-ridden, teenager mosquitoes, remember that you heard it here first.