Honolulu Lite
Tiny gnats are
driving islands gnutsI hope these tiny gnats that are laying siege to the islands have some nutritional value because I've been ingesting plenty of them.
Not on purpose. It's just that they are so light and airy that by simply inhaling, I suck them into my mouth. That's if I'm breathing through my mouth. I've sucked quite a few of the little blighters into my nasal cavities, too. They fly around my bedside lamp until they are roasted and then they drop onto my water mug where I inadvertently swig them down.
While not dangerous like centipedes or creepy like flying cockroaches, the gnats are annoying in a passive-aggressive way. What they lack in stingers, pincers, teeth or other offensive armaments, they make up by being small enough to slip through the screen and they do it with a vengeance.
I've never understood why outdoor bugs don't stay outdoors. Why come inside the house where they are going to be swatted or gassed to death?
I've had to put on several extra shifts of geckos to deal with the influx of gnats, but even that isn't doing the trick.
What I gather from the head of the Gecko Union is that his boys are stuffed and, frankly, the gnats don't taste that good anyway. I haven't seen a gecko in days. Either the gnats have started gang-jumping the geckos and hiding the corpses in the closets or the geckos have gone on holiday until termite season.
According to a recent Star-Bulletin story by Diana Leone, state pest control officers say the plague of gnats is due to recent heavy rains. The wetness has caused previously dry vegetation to create fungus, which the gnats love to eat. "These gnats have a purpose in life ... to eat the decaying organic matter and hasten its process back into the soil," one official said.
I'm not so sure about that. The purpose of these gnats' lives seems to be getting into my house.
I doubt seriously if these gnats are interested in hastening decaying organic matter back into soil. I suspect that, like 99.9 percent of every other life form on earth, gnats are mainly interested in having sex with other gnats and then eating during the breaks.
That's just a guess. I've never seen gnats having sex. I assume they do since there are so damn many of them flying around. But my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, and trying to get close enough to see if two gnats are mating might cause a cornea eruption. Either that or I'd accidentally inhale the buggers. I'm as interested in wild life as much as the next guy but I don't need copulating gnats up my nose.
The pest control people say that the gnats will be gone soon. Their annual mating and feeding frenzy is about over. This being a tropical island, the gnats will be replaced by some other plague of creatures. Whatever species they may be, I hope the geckos find them tasty.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com