Dustmitezilla

It was a dark and gloomy day on Frankie's 8th birthday. He was thrilled that his parents had got him a microscope with 1,000X magnification. Frankie decided to look for dust mites. He took a piece of scotch tape and collected dust mites off his fluffy family room couch.

Frankie looked very hard into the microscope but found only one dust mite. Frankie decided to make a mysterious potion to see how it will affect the dust mite. He mixed some secret ingredients to make a potion. He carefully dripped one drop of his potion on the dust mite.

POOF! Within seconds the dust mite grows larger than Frankie. It jumped out the nearest window crushing the family car. He continued to grow and cause havoc. Frankie thought only one thing...

"Dusmitezilla! Dustmitezilla! Dustmitezilla!"

Dustmitezilla didn't stop growing until he was as tall as Frankie's 100 ft tree in his backyard. His footprints were 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep! He smelled like sewer gases. His droppings were like large hills. He was eating everything in sight. He was a real monster.

Dustmitezilla went into the city. The road crunched and cracked beneath his feet. The people were terrorized. They sneezed mucus out of their noses like lava out of a volcano. All those people that were allergic to dust mites had the worst problem because they could barely breath.

Then a scientist saw Dustmitezilla and said,

"Oh no, Dermatophagoides Pteronyssinus Gigantica!
Achoooooo!"

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was sneezing and wheezing. It was a complete catastrophe! Everybody sneezed so much they were knee deep in mucus! People driving in their cars got stuck in the nasty gooey sticky mucus.

Everyone was horrified and trying to escape from Dustmitezilla except Dr. Sneeze, the town allergist. He knew more about dust mites than anyone. He was fascinated by Dustmitezilla's enormous size. He knew Dustmitezilla was not only big, but also a big problem.

Dr. Sneeze had an idea. He went to "Bob's Giant Carpets." Dr. Sneeze bought a circular carpet that was 125 feet in diameter. It was a thick, fuzzy carpet. The kind dust mites love.

Dr. Sneeze tied the humongous furry carpet to his minivan. He drove to the gigantic Dustmitezilla. Dustmitezilla spotted the carpet and started to follow it.

Dustmitezilla followed the carpet as Dr. Sneeze drove to a bomb test site. Dr. sneeze untied the giant carpet and drove away quickly.

Nearby, someone said "Ready? O.K., 3...2...1..."

KABOOOOOOOM!

Dr. Sneeze saved the day and Frankie used his potion only for doing amazing good things, like making giant potatoes to feed the world.

• Play the "Dust Game"
  
• Asthma and Allergies, NIEHS Kids Page Hot Topics
  
• NIEHS Asthma Resources
  
• Baylor University's "Air and Your World Indoors"
  
• Inappropriate Immune Responses, Asthma and Allergy (NIAID)
  
• National Library of Medicine's Breath of Life Exhibitions!