The Memoirs of Marsha Mosquito

Hi, I’m Marsha Mosquito. I’m four weeks old in human time, but in mosquito time, I’m an old lady now. And I’m the great-grandma to approximately 1.5 million grand-skeeters, though these days it’s hard to keep count. But it hasn’t always been this way.

I was born four human weeks ago in a birdbath in a Chester county, PA, backyard. I, along with my 300 brothers and sisters, were just eggs then. Being an egg was kind of boring, but after a couple days, my siblings and I all broke free from our eggs and became larvae, wiggling around and excited about the future. We couldn’t wait to become grownup mosquitoes! From what our extended family tells us (all billion or so of them), it’s a ton of fun flying around, annoying the heck out of people, and for the girls. . . the food is apparently delicious. My brothers are all vegetarians, they only eat plants. But my sisters and I heard all about the meat selection that came out into the backyard every day, and we couldn’t wait for the buffet!

Life as a larva is fun! It’s very much like a human’s adolescent years . . . a lot of wiggling around and acting silly. Our favorite thing to do was go swimming. Living in a birdbath, there was plenty of room, and plenty of random things just our size to eat, like microorganisms and nibble on leaves that fell into our pool. But my favorite part of living mostly underwater was snorkeling. We’d come up for air sometimes, but for the most part, we’d stick our “snorkel” out of the water and breath air. It’s much more fun that way. While my brothers and sisters and I were in our larva stage, our mom laid even more eggs in our birdbath pool, and our family kept getting bigger and bigger. Meanwhile, we were getting bigger and bigger, too. I even grew out of my skin a few times!

But life as a larva was exhausting after I shed my skin for the fourth time. Next thing I knew, I was a typical pupa. I believe that humans call their pupae teenagers. I kind of hit a depression . . . I mostly just laid around with an attitude and didn’t eat. Every once in a while I’d tumble so I could say warm in the sunlight, and I was pretty cranky. It seemed like forever, and I wondered if I would ever become a grownup mosquito. But my mom reminded me that we actually “grow up so fast,” because I was apparently only a pupa for a few days.

Next thing I knew, I wasn’t living underwater anymore. I was at the surface of the birdbath pool, and HOLY COW, I HAD WINGS!! It took me a little while to get used to this idea, so I decided to sunbathe on the surface while I waited for my wings to dry and my brand new exoskeleton to harden.

Then, I was ready for liftoff. I couldn’t wait to try out my new duds and brand new wings. And let me tell you — flying is a BLAST! I could fly all over the yard, and oh, how I flew. I buzzed by people’s heads, and I loved annoying them. Then, I knew it was time — I could feel it in my biological clock — it was time for me to become a mosquito mom myself. I met a handsome fella named Marvin, and yadda yadda yadda. . . it’s true what they say about cravings. I needed a blood meal, and I needed it badly. And they were right — there was a smorgasbord of potential meals that hung out in my yard and it seemed like an endless buffet. I took my first sip of human blood from the youngest member of the family, and boy was it tasty! Oh, I was so, so full . . . I had to rest in some water because I had a couple hundred of my own babies on the way.

I found a nice, cozy bottle cap of water to lay my first children in. It wasn’t a lot of water, but it was all I needed to start a nice, big happy family, Marvin and I. So I laid my first couple hundred children, and let them grow up just like I did.

I’m not sure whatever happened to Marvin, he flew off one day and the kids and I never saw him again. It was hard at first, but then I met Mark, and we decided to have our own kids, and I needed another blood meal. So I found another person to take a sip of nice, delicious blood from, and found myself, once again, full and woozy. This time I found a kid’s toy that had some standing water in it and laid my next batch of kids there — about 300 this time. My family was getting bigger and bigger and I couldn’t have been a prouder mom. In between Marvin and Mark, my own daughters had their own babies, and I became a grandma.

I would continue this story, as my family indeed kept getting bigger, until just a few minutes ago. I’m feeling very weak right now and I can’t stop coughing. I can’t really breathe anymore. A human in a green shirt (or was it a Ghostbuster?) just came by where I was resting and now I’m in a big fog. I’d love to keep telling my story, but I think it’s time to go now. I’m glad I got to tell you this story, though, My name is Marsha Mosquito, I’m a great-great-grandmother to likely a billion mosquitoes now, and these were my memoirs.

Keep Marsha mosquito’s granddaughters from using your property as the plot in their mosquito memoirs — contact Mosquito Squad of Chester & Delaware County and put an end to the never-ending saga of pesky (and dangerous) mosquitoes in your backyard once and for all! For a free mosquito control quote on your property, call us today.

Among the towns we serve are West Chester, Exton, Downingtown, Chester Springs, Pottstown, Phoenixville, Paoli, Devon, Chadsford, Kennett Square, Malvern, East and West Goshen and more. We also provide mosquito control to much of the Delaware County area and the western Route 1 Corridor. Among the towns we serve are Newtown Square, Springfield, Broomall, Media, Swarthmore Drexel Hill, Thornbury, Edgemont, Aston, Morton, Norwood, Glenoldon, Folsom, Folcroft, Avondale, Chatham, Landenberg, New London and Oxford.

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