That's right. Flies. Why am I writing about flies in the middle of the night? I woke up. No, it wasn't the thought of flies that woke me up. Waking up was brought on by menopausal-middle-of-the-night-wide-awakeness. Something only women my age can begin to understand. But once awake, I started thinking about the flies from yesterday.
I first noticed them when I got home. (Now this has been a bountiful year in the fly population here in Alabama. Not only have I noticed more flies at work, but the fly population that occupies the space around my house has been a lot larger than previous years. Or maybe I just am noticing flies more now.) I made note when I was fixing something to eat in the kitchen that there was a very busy fly buzzing my head. Then as I looked closer I noticed there wasn't just one, but three. I got the fly flap (southern slang for fly swatter) and made a few feeble attempts to kill them...thought I got them all...then went to the computer room to check email and noticed more flies in there...there was one buzzing behind the blinds that were closed, and I knew that one was trapped and could await his demise until I had finished on the computer...then I noticed two or three more buzz bombing my head...
This was a lot of flies for us...usually we get one or two inside flies who never last long before they are either shooed back outside or they die horrible squishy deaths on the end of the fly flap. I asked Steve twice if he had left the door open for any reason and he denied it, and I couldn't read any guilt on his face so I really couldn't rag on him about it...by this time we are both noticing several flies are buzzing around so he gets up to help me regain order and destroy what is starting to look like a horde....I am flapping in the computer room when Steve casually walks in and fogs the room up with fly spray...I tell him as I jump up choking on the fog in the air that the stuff doesn't work...and leave the room until the oxygen returns....
When I get back, I find corpses...3 of them to be exact...one right in my chair...so I had to admit I was wrong (Steve loves the rare occasion when I have to do that) and clean up corpses...
As I dealt with the fly invasion, I started thinking about Alaskan flies. When I got to Alaska last year I discovered that the flies there really could almost be classified as birds. I still remember seeing this THING in the air in our apartment. It was flying so slow I could have picked it out of the air with my fingers. And it was furry...that's right, I could see a little fur coat on the body. I hollered at my girlfriend "hey Nancy! What is this thing flying around in here?" Without missing a beat she calmly replied "oh that's a fly". I was horrified by the size of it and the creepy slowness of it (I was used to the Alabama flies mentioned above) and knocked it out of the air with one swipe of the fly flap...then stood over the corpse and just gawked at it for about 10 more minutes in wonder...it was the first living thing I had seen in Alaska. The amazing thing is, this fly was alive in the dead of winter with -46F wind chill snow and icy weather. Still don't know how it survived the winter or where it came from.
Things I have learned about flies:
They are mysterious. They come from nowhere.
They come in different shapes and sizes, I guess to give fly collectors variety.
No matter how fast you swing your arms and think you have killed them all, there are always one or two lurkers waiting to buzz your head.
Enough about flies. I won. Will live to fly flap another day.
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