MOSQUITOES ARE GOING TO EAT YOU ALIVE

By Mike Colin
My grandpa lives out in the backwoods and he has all sorts of bugs that bite all around him. In particular he has some really large and vicious mosquitoes that will attack you as soon as you step outside. My grandpa always says that if you go outside “the mosquitoes are going to eat you alive”. I guess he lost his best hunting dog to mosquitoes one day. He said he had just gotten back from visiting his still and he saw millions of mosquitoes carry off his blue tick hound. He said they were so thick they looked just like a black bear.

Once when I was a kid the whole family was going to have their annual picnic at grandpa’s place. Well, my grandpa knew he had to do something about the mosquitoes so he decided he’d set some smudge fires all around his house so the mosquitoes would keep away. Now things were going pretty good for old grandpa as he lit the last smudge fire. Then, suddenly the wind came up and the smudge turned into a yellow wall of flames that completely encircled his house. Luckily, my grandpa’s roof had been leaking all winter and spring so the boards in the house were entirely soaked with water and would not burn even though his kerosene heater had also been leaking for months all over the floor.

Well, a serious township wide fire broke out and this got the attention of the authorities. It seems that one mans smudge fire is called a forest fire by local officials. Grandpa went off to the county lock up for two and a half years. He got six months for setting a forest fire and two years for having an illegal still. Grandpa said he set the fire for self-defense. He said that he set the fires in order to save himself and his family from being carried off by the mosquitoes. Grandpa also claimed that his still was there to provide a medical treatment for his glaucoma. He said he would have used legalized marijuana but he didn’t want to get addicted to smoking. After all, his dad had died of lung disease and that always kept old grandpa on the straight and narrow.