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The other day, LAist was cruising the freeways at the posted legal speed limit (as always) when we noticed we were alongside a pickup truck with an intriguing insignia on its driver door. "Vector Control District," we read, as the car whooshed past us. We mulled it over, thought at first perhaps it was something we'd slept through years ago in Mr. Gilliland's 4th period Chemistry class, and then...we panicked. Vector? That sounded serious. Earthquake-related? No, no...that's seismic. What then? Chemical warfare? The depleted Ozone? Was this another arm of the government aimed at hyping the ever-present threat of terror? Where was our trusty dictionary when we needed it?
Once we were safely at our destination, we steered ourselves onto the information superhighway, and did what any other citizen of the 21st century would do in our shoes: we Googled it. And then we exhaled. Turns out, the great County of Los Angeles has our vector under control. And vector? Well, they're bugs. Mosquitos, black flies, midges, Africanized honeybees and the like. The Greater LA County Vector Control District has been reducing populations of public health vectors below nuisance levels and all that task entails since 1952. What a relief!
Yes, LAist felt a little silly. But we also felt more informed. And with vector, or anything else, isn't that what counts? We thought so.
