NOT a Guru!
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
July 4th has always been my favorite holiday. There’s an air of casual fun, with no hassle to buy gifts and instead of slaving in a hot kitchen over a huge meal, you can power up the grill outside and serve your guests a hassle-free meal … on paper plates and outside. It’s one of the few “community” oriented holidays, when the town gathers for parades and an awesome fireworks display.
The only bummer when it comes to 4th of July celebrating is the mosquitoes, and it seems they are out in droves during this time of year. While our country’s been around for a bit over 200 years, mosquitoes have been hanging out for the past 30 million years, according to some sources. These pests can hone in on your hot and maybe drunken 4th of July blood with a variety of sensors, including heat sensors, chemical sensors and visual sensors. An old Japanese/Chinese superstition says that these biting pests are actually karmic reincarnations of blood-sucking relatives. (Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things)
A friend told me a few years ago that Vitamin B wards off biting mosquitoes. So, I’ve faithfully been taking Vitamin B every summer and making my friends, family and everyone else I know take it too. It seems to work — I have maybe one or two bites a summer. But then I found several articles citing a study that refuted the “Vitamin B” myth. Apparently, the U.S. Center for Disease Control found that Vitamin B has absolutely no effect on warding off mosquitoes. Now that the placebo has been smashed and destroyed with some Internet research, I’m curious to see how many bites all of us on the Vitamin B kick will suffer now that the power of belief is gone. Vitamin B has huge health benefits, so I’ll keep taking it. As far as bites are concerned, here are some other ways to ward off the mosquitoes:
- DEET, which is found in insect repellents, was developed by the U.S. Army in the 1940s, is considered to be the most effective mosquito repellent.
- Avon’s “Skin So Soft” wards of biting mosquitoes for short periods of time. It smells pretty good, too.
- Wear light colored clothes, at least during the day. This screws up the mosquitoes’ visual abilities.
Get rid of any standing water sources in your yard because that’s where mosquitoes breed. A long, long time ago when I was a kid, my brother and I saved up our money to buy some Sea Monkeys that were advertised in the back of a comic book. We saved our small allowances for months to create an aquarium for these cute creatures. Finally, our Sea Monkeys arrived in a colorful box adorned with cool looking creatures that could do tricks and entertain us for hours. It was the dead of winter in Wisconsin, with the wind chill factor hovering in the 30 below 0 range. We carefully emptied our magical packet of Sea Monkeys into our aquarium and waited. Two weeks later, the house was full of mosquitoes. We probably bought our “Sea Monkeys” from a fraudulent source because according to the official Sea Monkey site, they’re actually brine shrimp. The point, however, is that stagnant, standing water will attract mosquitoes.
Happy 4th of July!
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Oh, I think my ancestors got a lot karmic reincarnations of blood-sucking relatives here, hehehe. Hmmm, I wonder what flies are in Japanese and Chinese superstitious beliefs?
Had I known about Vitamin B, I would not have probably contracted dengue fever at an early age, tsk, tsk, tsk. You're right on about the standing water info right there.