SAY WHAT YOU will about Father's Day - that it is a second-string holiday, that according to Hallmark it trails Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day in card-sales wallop - nonetheless, the day does offer some opportunities for dads.

Namely, it is a chance to get yourself some really stupid stuff. Stuff that you might hesitate to buy for yourself but that your family will gleefully acquire for you if dropped a major hint, as in "I want this." That is because many Americans, including a lot of offspring, are just beginning to focus on the fact that tomorrow is Father's Day and that they are expected to get a gift for that guy who keeps putting gas in the car. In short, they are desperate for Father's Day gift ideas, even stupid ones.

High on my wish list this Father's Day, for instance, is a device that claims to scare away mosquitoes by relying on bad vibes between males and females.

This is not one of the new breed of expensive mosquito traps. This is a cheap one, which is one reason it appeals to me.

The pricey traps are pretty sophisticated gizmos that run on either propane or electricity. They heat up and emit carbon dioxide and a scent that smells like ox breath. (I think another popular Father's Day gift idea, a cigar, might produce the same results.)

Gases, in the right quantities, seem to lure mosquitoes into a trap, where they are dispatched. Some traps ambush the mosquitoes in a clear plastic chamber so you can view the doomed. Others obscure the morbid proceedings. They are sold at prices ranging from $100 to $1,300 both on the Web and in the insect-warfare sections of hardware and department stores.

As a frequent combatant in mosquito warfare, I try to follow developments on this front. Lately the reviews I have read of these high-end mosquito control devices have been mixed. Mosquitoes haters from Florida to the Dakotas, who have shelled out several hundred dollars for one these contraptions, testify that they have made a substantial dent in the backyard bug population. But mosquito-control professionals, people who are paid by various jurisdictions to count and capture bugs, doubt that the traps can deliver a total victory.

One Virginia biologist, for instance, told the Daily Press in Hampton Roads that the best place to put one of these newfangled traps was far away from your house, even in a neighbor's yard. When given the choice, mosquitoes prefer people to manufactured scents, he explained. Another pro in Florida, sounding like the Abe Lincoln of mosquito control, said that while these traps can fool some mosquitoes some of the time, they can't fool all of the mosquitoes all of the time. This week I spent a lot of time on the computer, exploring various forms of mosquito weaponry. I knew the high-end units, such as the $500 Mosquito Magnet, were out of my league. My family doesn't think I am worth that kind of money, even on Father's Day.

Then at smarthome.com I found the MosquitoContro, a $20 unit that sports both a price tag and a principle I could cozy up to.

The concept behind MosquitoContro, a portable mosquito repeller with a night light, is that you keep mosquitoes away by emitting bad vibrations. That is my term. The MosquitoContro term is "replicating the wing-beat frequencies of male mosquitoes."

It turns out that, according to the sales pitch, female mosquitoes don't like to be near males. (This is confusing to me, because the MosquitoContro literature also says that only pregnant female mosquitoes bite. To get pregnant, the female mosquitoes did, I assume, at one point spend a certain amount of time hanging around with the guys. Apparently from a female mosquito point of view, males are good only for one thing, and once that is done with, the guys are useless. Come to think of it, I know a few marriages like that.)

Anyway, the MosquitoContro works on the "Here come the jerks, run for cover!" principle. Powered by two C batteries, it sends out vibrations that mimic those emitted by airborne male mosquitoes. Once the gal mosquitoes feel these bad vibes, they vamoose. On one hand, this theory sounds farfetched. But on the other hand, if you think about what happens at a lot of bars on Saturday night, the bad-vibes principle makes sense.

There are three sets of bad vibrations that come from this machine. Two replicate different the wing-beat frequencies of male mosquitoes and the third replicates the wing beats of the dragonfly, a mosquito predator.

The sales pitch promises me a 16-feet-by-16-feet space free of biting mosquitoes. It doesn't explain what happens if the wind blows, or the vibes change, or if the aggressive, gutter-dwelling Asian Tiger mosquitoes that have been feasting on me lately are one of the types that can be scared by a few sonic pulses.

I suppose I could draw some parallels between the struggle that is fatherhood and the battle against mosquitoes. I could point out that a mosquito control device that capitalizes on the on-again, off-again feelings between the sexes has a certain resonance with veteran dads. I could point out that the tasks of raising children and of battling mosquitoes seem to be lifelong undertakings punctuated by occasional victories and periodic setbacks.

That may be true. But as Father's Day approaches, most dads don't want philosophy. We want a little recognition and maybe a stupid little gift.