Heard a cicada the other day. It's the sound you always forget until it returns. (You always note the first one. No one ever notes the last.) The rattling sound is a mating call, of course, which means that the signature sound of a summer afternoon is a disgusting looking thing shouting GIMME SOME LOVIN', but that's Nature. As bugs go, they're OK. They don't bite, they don't fly down your shirt and buzz HOLY HECK GET ME OUT OF HERE like stupid, clumsy June Bugs -- the drunks of the insect world -- and they don't show up in sky-darkening hordes eating crops and stripping Fido to the bone, so we like them. Buzz on, little dudes, and good luck finding that special someone.

Which brings us to mosquitoes. The state bird, ha ha. How we hate them. I'm not a cruel man, but if I could catch a skeeter alive, I'd stake it out on the yard with dental floss just to watch a bat eat it. Slowly. They want our blood, and seem to think they're entitled: C'mon, you can't possible be using all of it. Just a little. I got kids to feed. They whine in your ear like the sped-up sound of a 5-year-old begging for a Webkinz; they stab you, they leave welts the size of breakaway Balkan enclaves, they make summer miserable. But are they as bad as before?

No. The dry spell has helped; more sophisticated control methods have helped. Boomers remember the summers of childhood, when you wouldn't go outside after dusk until mom had hooked up an IV drip of your blood type, and it was hard to play when you're dragging along the stand. Even if it had wheels. The skeeter situation is better now, but one or two bites is still too many. What can you do? There are a few options, and since you depend on your newspaper to state the obvious, here are some helpful tips.

1. Citronella candles. These work great, which is why they're at the top of the list. We recommend the heavy ones in metal tins. First, you slap the mosquito. When it falls to the ground, stunned, you throw the candle at it. If you want to light the candle, that'll work as well; simply pour the wax on the twitching skeeter. Otherwise, they're useless. One year I bought six torches, filled the tanks with citronella fluid, and staked them out around the yard for that charming pig-roast-on-Gilligan's-Island look. We were consumed. Because mosquitoes have learned that the scent of citronella means there are humans who don't believe in Off!

Which brings us to tip #2:

2. Off! It comes in Deep Woods Formula, which is like Extra-Strength Aspirin. Guess you use regular formula when you want to be bitten just a little. (Deep Woods deals with chiggers, for example. No one wants chiggers. No one wants to be chigged.) The Off! of today is different; our moms sprayed us down with a can of Off! until we smelled like a refinery. It always went in your mouth, too, which is why I never cared that Off! came in different scents; I wanted a can that said "Same bug-repelling power, great new taste."

Off! now markets a portable device that exudes an invisible mist of something they call "metofluthrin," which sounds like something you'd do at a small-town church. I hear good things about it, but what I want is a machine I can clip to my belt that makes skeeters swell up to the size of a popcorn kernel and explode. Or something that just kicks out clouds of bat pheromones. If it means being surrounded with amorous bats, I can deal with that.

Has to be better than the time I tried out my cicada imitation. Even after you scrape them off, they still call and send flowers.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858. More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz