For all the old-skool clubbers, I'm not talking about that anthemic track by Faithless, I'm talking about another kind of insomnia. It's that time of year again when, to my disappointment, the crisp coolness of winter starts to slip away, like the blankets and duvets that are cast off in favor of lighter bed linen.

For some reason the birds in my neighborhood don't allow the absence of light to get in the way of their cheerful announce-it's-morning-now songs. I've had several strange experiences standing outside in the artificial glow of the street lamps, while the feathered denizens of the road chirp, squawk, and sing like the sun is going to spring out from behind a tree at any second and incinerate me on the spot. Which is doesn't. They just keep singing. In the dark. Get with the program, birds. No light = night, light = morning.

I'm a winter person, always have been. I find it easier to get warm than to get cool. In the stifling heat of summer, you reach a point where you simply can't wear any less without compromising your friendships or inviting arrest or injury. But putting confused birds and my temperature preferences aside, let me tell you the number one reason I dislike summer...

The Mosquito.

In our home, being the man of the house, I'm often called upon to evict unwanted house guests - spiders, huge moths, lizards, praying mantises, cockroaches, those 'christmas beetle' things that seem to navigate by crashing into everything possible, overly friendly cats, uncooperative birds, and every so often the pants-on-head crazy dog that lives two apartments down and wanders into our place because its almost completely blind and deaf and can't tell the difference.

I will go to great lengths to capture these creatures and set them free outside, risking fang, claw, beak, and sting so that my respect for all life can be upheld and I don't have to clean up a messy final encounter with them.

But nothing produces a "stuff nature, you die right now" reaction in me like a mosquito. That noise, just on the edge of hearing, which always comes at the precise time of the night you feel like kicking off the blankets. That gnawing thought that you can't drift off into sleep because the little devil will start gnawing you. That glorious moment when you think you've flattened it with your pillow, only to hear its mocking whine again, like high pitched devious laughter. Or worse still, that you DID kill it but there's another one in the room. It's the stuff of madness.

The popularity of the series Heroes proved that everyone wants a superpower of some kind, something that sets them apart from others. Me? I just want to be able to look at a mosquito and have it explode right there. That's all. No flying, no super strength, no teleportation, no mind reading. Exploding mosquitoes on sight would be the superpower I wish for.

I take my dislike of mosquitoes so far as to be reluctant to get rid of any other uninvited guest, be it spider, gecko or otherwise, if I know that part of the unwanted guest's regular diet is mosquito. As far as I'm concerned, if you eat mosquitoes, you're welcome in my house.

P.S. Do a Google Image Search for mosquitoes, and notice how many of the results are of people allowing themselves to be bitten. Don't we have enough footage of this travesty?