The News from Gridleyville

Photo by James Gathany via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Image Library; found on Wikipedia

As a straight guy of a certain age (SGOACA), I’ve long been aware of a central fact of male aging: We become invisible to young women. This week, on vacation in Mosquitoland USA, I’ve discovered what appears to be a corollary: Female mosquitoes, the only ones who suck blood, are also no longer drawn to me.

While I sit here totally unaffected by the insect population, all the others in my family are getting eaten alive. My companions have slathered on multiple types of bug lotion, applied half a dozen sprays, including those with extra-strength DEET, added citronella bracelets and ankle bands, and still they suffer big itchy welts on arms, necks, elbows, even the crown of the head. I have used no repellent at all except coffee breath and my natural blandness.

Oh god, does this mean that we SGOACAs are unattractive to females of ALL species? Turtles? Hamsters?

There goes my dream of romance with a shapely porpoise.

Wait, though, there’s another possibility, less devastating to the male ego. Maybe the corporate plutocrats deliberately make bug sprays and lotions ineffective so the deluded public will use gallons of the stuff and then buy more. In fact, come to think of it, these products must contain a secret ingredient that attracts mosquitoes, black flies and other nemeses. Why else would the bugs ignore me and swarm round those covered with so-called repellent?

I’m going to write to Donald Trump about this. I hear he may be running out of his own conspiracy theories.