It’s always funny when it’s not you… so the saying goes, as I sit here in the dimly lit living room, dripping in deet from head to toe, awkwardly situated on three uncomfortably thin pillows on the couch with the only movements of my body in slow robotic gestures. As a fan from 1973 slowly creaks back and forth, the wind gently tickles our arms and legs, and Megan, Patrick, Monica and Michael sit contently gazing into their computer screens. And here I sit. That fan. That stupid, creaky, fan laughing at me with every breeze. The slightest gust of a breeze and I instantly panic at the thought of yet, ANOTHER mosquito eating away at my oh-so-fragile Oregon complexion. That little tickle. Could it be a strand of hair dancing against my deeted arm? Or maybe a loose string? Perhaps it could even be Michael’s sleeve softly sweeping against me. But no, it is not a hair, not a string, and not a sleeve. I briskly turn to my left and raise my arm to investigate my tricep and there it sits. Ravenously sucking away at my blood like an Obruni chugging an ice-cold bottled water in Africa, the mosquito goes on as I stare at it with fury. “YOU MUST BE JOKING!” are the only words that can escape my mouth as I turn my arm to Michael to prove my seemingly irrational phobia of Malaria. Before I had time to finish my sentence Michael is already slapping my arm and saying: “Well KILL IT!” He quickly turns over his hand to check for the disfigured bloody corpse that was my enemy. Alas, he had escaped. “REALLY!?” I sat with squinted eyes, anger in my heart, and a brand new itchy, swollen mosquito bite. I glanced over the top of my computer screen to assess the damage thus far. I could count a minimum of 9 bites, with my new one adding to my number to make it a staggering 10… that I know of. While I may have lost this battle, I stare out into the night with my can of deet in one hand, and my mosquito net in the other. Bring. It. ON.

-Shawna