No More Mosquitos

Because Throw Out Your OFF Spray, Stellaluna’s on the Case was too long of a title!

So my bug zapper broke, the one with that cool ass black-ish fluorescent light. Anyway, I went to Home Depot to purchase a new bulb. The guy tells me ‘good luck’ they havent’ made these in years and to try Batteries and Lights and Stuff Plus.

Well now, I was upset. I absolutely love Home Depot. I wanted to have my wedding registry there, but they didn’t offer that service. Anywho, I bought a bat hotel instead. Problem Solved.

Now let me explain my case. Ya’ll know I’m a functionista - I couldn’t care less about fashion and make up and all things pink, but if you’re in my limited section of appliances and unlimited section of pets and plants, you have got to put in the work, you feel me? You can’t be around here just looking cute (although Pablo and Poopah are the cutest) and displaying flowers and shit all day, you’d better be bringing bees to the yard or warding off ticks or something.

Omg, I remember when we were in Trinidad once and my friend said, ‘man, these birds sure are active this late at night.’ and we were like, uh, those are bats. You should’ve seen him swatting the air feverishly!

So, what, now bats aren’t cute? We decorate with them for Halloween. They’re a major super hero, and a the design of a matching cool car, mind you. Teachers all over the damn nation read Stellaluna to the 1st and 2nd graders. What do you think would happen during literacy centers??? They will soak up all the knowledge they can from that Unit (thanks Mrs. George) and suggest that we get pet bats, and invite them to our bat airbnb. Uh, ok Layla, a bat hotel it is! I guess we could’ve bred dragonflies too, since they also eat mosquitos, but that damn buzzing sound is hella annoying.

Bats are super functional for the summer. They can eat up to 1200 mosquitos an hour, including moths, beetles, winged ants, and June bugs. They also eat fruit flues and mangos. But maybe not this kind. So I vote them as top performers. Besides, my lamp never got anywhere close to 1200 damn mosquitoes before he went to bug light heaven. Bats are nearly the perfect pet; they stay out of your way, you only see them at night if you’re feeding your pet vampire, and their poop fertilizes the grass rather nicely. All pros if you ask me. Some even feed on insects that spread disease or destroy agricultural crops.

While I was researching for this post, there’s even bat repellant out there on the market! Why would someone want to get rid of Robin and his friends (yes, we’ve appropriately named him Robin). Ok, well the vampire bats do eat blood, but it’s usually from cows or something, alongside count Dracula, but not human blood.

So i got these little cedar house from $19 on etsy. Yes, I could have made them myself. But with work, school, soap, cooking elaborate meals in the crockpot and cutting the grass with Manuel the manual lawnmower (no relation to Manolo my orchid), I knew I wouldn’t have the time.

So, yeah, I purchased it, and hung them on the four corners of our massive 1/4 acre farm and lived happily ever after. I even open up the sliders without fear, mostly because I threw away the screen doors when my mom died (still don’t know why) but, without fear nonetheless. :-)