Day 395: The Pied Piper of Mosquitoes!

Today was apparently morbid fantasy game day here at Tumaini. It began with some ominous knocking on the door. As we have said, little knocks at all times of day are pretty standard here, but I was in the back room, far from the door, and this particular knock coincided with a small and quite filthy hand coming in my window, as a small, high-pitched voice told me “I am going to kiilllll you!!!!”

It was, of course, none other than the highly mild mannered 8-year-old named after a dictator, whose other catch phrase is “sweetie.” We don’t know where he learned the vocabulary of “I’m going to kill you” but he finds it hysterical. He would repeat this as he waved his arm around through the window until I went to the window to look at him, at which point he would scamper away giggling to hide. Meanwhile, the knocking in the front door continued, until Claire finally answered it to deal with daily crisis #24 in which the twelve year old explains their need for a paper—and by paper, they mean plastic—bag.

I should have known then that something was afoot. But it was only when Rhoda decided to tell me stories based on the pictures in the Runner’s World magazine that I began noticing a theme. She took a picture of a woman kayaking through a river. She then told me “she go go go go go go go!!!! Then the man beat her, she dieeeee!!!!!!!!!!!”

This story went with multiple advertisements. Rhoda found it hysterical. I was a bit confused, to be honest.

But not nearly as confused as when I became the hero of Jane’s story. We were discussing “evil Mos-kwee-toes” as the kids call them. Paul pointed out that even Lara, the vegetarian, will kill evil mosqueetoes because they are evil. Like Rhoda. Jane then began explaining to Paul that I don’t kill the moskweetoes because I catch them all. I then gather them together, and feed them rice so they will stay near me. Then, I tell them “you you you you you moskweetoes! Eat this one! And this one!” And that is why I do not kill moskweetoes.

In the words of Jane: “It is because Roola does not kill moskweetoes. It is because she uses them to “nini.” She uses them to attack others. Like “nini.” Like Rhoda.”

I tell you. It was quite the imaginative day on the funny farm.