Yesterday, a young expectant mother approached me, much to my chagrin. She sort of snuck up on me, and her presence was uninvited. More than that, it was unwanted.

She was looking for a handout, and I was a bit put off by her intrusion, even though her need was rather small in the big scheme of things. It wouldn’t affect my life in any great way, although it might cause some minor and temporary discomfort.

I was bugged that she assumed I would be willing to help her – to provide sustenance to her unborn children. I’m usually a pretty generous person, but somehow this situation got under my skin.

So, instead of allowing this soon-to-be mother to simply take from me what she needed and go on with her life, I put an end to it all.

I killed her and her unborn offspring.

With a slap of my bare hand.

I swatted that mosquito with one fell swoop.

I’ve swatted plenty of mosquitoes in my lifetime, but this one got me to thinking. We humans are very good at disliking mosquitoes. They are a nuisance and their bites cause bumps that itch. How inconvenient for us!

I’ve always looked at the situation from my point of view. Mosquitos are irritating pests; I’m sure we can all agree to that.

But what about approaching this from the mosquito’s perspective? They are asking for a tiny amount of our blood: an average bite is less than one drop, which is an inconsequential amount for any human.

Yet, almost to the whole, we are unwilling to help out the poor, needy mosquito moms-to-be. (Interesting fact: only female mosquitos desire human blood in order to develop their eggs. Males feast solely on plant nectar.)

While less than a drop of blood might seem like a reasonable ask, there are concerns about parasitic diseases mosquitoes can spread. Things like: West Nile virus, Zika, malaria and yellow fever. All those cause much more distress than an itchy bump on the skin.

Still, things like West Nile virus are relatively rare - according to the CDC, less than one percent of bites result in severe disease.

So hoping for a drop of blood, from a mommy mosquito’s perspective, probably doesn’t seem like too much to hope for. For sure not something worthy of death to both her and her children.

Yet we hand down that sentence all the time without any aforethought. And there’s more. I’ve been known to swat mosquitoes just because they are mosquitos. They could be sitting innocently on a wall or a table and I’d swat away. It’s likely I’ve murdered more than a few male mosquitos in my lifetime, and they weren’t posing any danger to me or my blood.

I’m literally aghast at the thought.

I’ve been a human my entire life. I find it difficult enough to see outside my own little orbit and empathize with other humans. Doing that with mosquitos increases the difficulty to an exponential level, which is probably why I’ve never attempted or even thought about it until today.

I’d never even thought about mosquitos as parents.

Again, aghast doesn’t even begin to cover it. But I’m trying.

As I’ll continue to do, henceforth. The work will be ongoing.

Which reminds me, one morning last week, I was brushing my teeth and noticed a tiny spider resting peacefully on the bathroom mirror. That generated the most obvious question: Do spiders think they are attractive?

If not, why was Mr. (or Mrs.) spider looking in the mirror? That’s a complex thought, worthy (as I’m sure you’ll agree) of another column. Spider feelings. Spider self-worth. Spider pride. Spider love.

There’s a lot to consider. Maybe it will be two columns. I’ll have to sort through and edit all these difficult, complicated and consequential thoughts for sure. So much material to cover, and I haven’t even touched on the myriad issues involving ants.

I’ll keep you posted.

— Jill Pertler’s column Slices of Life appears occasionally in the Times. She can be reached at slicescolumn@gmail.com.