Whenever Aitch perceives a new specimen of insect, he asks what it’s called and then asks his father, “Daddy, do we like it?” Then he adds it to his “Litany of Bugs,” which he immediately recites:

“We like ladybugs!

“We like fireflies!

“We like caterpillars!

“We like dragonflies!

“No we like ticks!” and so forth.

I have impressed upon him that we “no like mosquitoes.” I happen to have blood that especially appetizing to mosquitoes, and thus I am often imposed upon for an early evening snack. This has made my summer, with all the mosquitoes breeding in the standing water from our recent storms, a living hell. Outside, I have to be doused in awful-smelling DEET. At night, after I shower, I’m plagued with bites. The mosquitoes seem to congregate around places where I am likely to be sitting still: by my kitchen computer, where they nip at my ankles as I blog, and in Minor’s room, where they get me while I’m trying to rock him to sleep.

I’ve always been mosquito bait. When I was younger, my cousin once counted 72 mosquito bites on my legs. In the Peace Corps, I carried a mosquito net everywhere I traveled, and was actually bitten on the soles of my feet during one of my rare outings without a net.

Why is this? Theories differ: is it blood type or carbon dioxide output? Alcohol consumption or body chemistry? Maybe high cholesterol or lactic acid? I don’t know, but female mosquitoes require human blood to fertilize their eggs. Hey, at least I’m fertile for something.