The mosquitos in my bathroom are adapting for the privilege of biting me.

Let me back up. There are always at least 6 mosquitos in my bathroom, usually more, because of perpetual standing water (it’s a wet bathroom; no shower curtain) and a free entry from outside when my balcony door is propped open to do laundry. I have yet to absorb enough DEET to have it renew itself by radiating out of my every poor when the DEET on my skin runs off in the shower, so showering is my most vulnerable moment (I still have high hopes to spray enough DEET into my system in the remaining three months that I become a pungent presence no matter what).

The presence of mosquitos makes my shower time quite a challenge, and I have learned how to reach out and kill a mosquito with just my left hand. And I’ve gotten quite good at this skill; during one killing spree I felled 12 mosquitos and only sustained one bite in six minutes.

But what has added to my challenge is that the mosquitos in my bathroom are adapting to me. I’m not kidding. As my aim and accuracy have improved, they have become faster and more darting in their movements, sometimes even flying on my right side where they know I am more vulnerable (I now apply shampoo and soap with just my right hand). I don’t know how fast it takes the genes for speed and zig-zagging flight paths to become part of the larger population, but it took 9 weeks for the mosquitos in my room to stop seeing me as an easy and pathetic meal to a warrior, a meal that should be feared and respected while feasting on her.

I’m not saying I’m worthy of my mosquito’s respect (I have many more skills to learn); rather, I’m saying that if Darwin had come to Khon Kaen Thailand and used a bathroom like mine, he would have published his theory on natural selection in a few months rather than all those years he spent on The Beagle.