Fling wide the door! Step through, and hold it open in an act of chivalry. Chivalry is not dead. It lives! It lives in the egresses of my humble home, where the menfolk see fit to invite in poopy-foot flies until the cows come home. Thank goodness we don't have cows.
If I had my druthers, my family would be required to enter our abode like Indiana Jones creeping through the Temple of Doom. Like Tom Cruise trying to complete an impossible mission. Like Maxwell Smart striding though closing doors at CONTROL headquarters. Or to exit like Maria slipping out the front door of the von Trapp mansion during a grand party.
Flies have no business in my house. There's no poop to crawl on. That's their job, you know. To crawl on poop. Don't tell me how flies like decomposing critter carcasses just as well. Nope. I know what they're up to. They're poop-crawlers. That's what they live for. That's how they live. Sure, every now and then you hear of them laying their eggs in decomposing critter carcasses. They're just using them as surrogates because they can't find enough poop to crawl in. Poop, poop, poop. That's their mantra.
I show no mercy when they come poopy-footing around my kitchen. I grab the old-fashioned baby-blue flyswatter that hangs from a metal hook on the cutting block. "Feast your compound eyes on THIS!" I hiss. In my mind. Out loud might make my chivalrous menfolk look at me askance. The poopy-footed guest today was invited by The Pony after our trip to town. "Close that door! What are you trying to do, let in flies?"
"I'm going back to the car for my phone. I was holding the door for you. Look out. This one's trying to get in. Too late."
Yes. Too late. For that poop-crawler. I grabbed my swatter. The Pony had returned. "I just saw him. Where did he go?"
"Um. Right there. On YOUR FOOT!" Huh. Like he thought I could feel a fly on the instep of my white leather New Balance. Some reverse princess detecting a pea.
"Watch this!"
"Haha! He got away!"
"Not for long. Where'd he go?"
"Right here. On the floor."
"He's not very smart."
"Let ME get him." I handed over the swatter while I busied myself getting my 44 oz. Diet Coke ready for transport to my dark basement lair. "Oops! Missed." I took back my swatter and sent The Pony packing my drinks downstairs. That poop-crawler landed on a metal tray on my almond stove-top. I swung without mercy. Like a clean-up hitter going for the left field fence. Some might term my at-bat as a foul. The poop-crawler tried to take off. Too late. He must have been suffering from multiple macular degeneration. I struck him a glancing blow, which caused him to fly in a slow spiral into the drip pan of my front burner. Don't think I was giving up.
I pulled up the metal coil and dipped the edge of the flyswatter under the poop-crawler. He walked in a circle like a puppy chasing its tail. Only much smaller, and not cute. I spun to the sink, and dumped him in. Turned on the water full blast. Grabbed the sprayer for good measure. That's one poop-crawler that's not coming back.
Later, I told The Pony, "I got him! I smacked him on the stove, and he flew into the burner, and I scooped him out and washed him down the sink."
"I know. I heard the death scream." I'm not sure if he's talking about one from the poop-crawler, or from me. "I would have turned on the burner and roasted him to ashes."
So much for chivalry.
I nailed one today with a wet bathing suit from three yards!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid and we went on family vacations, when we arrived at the Holiday Inn (kids stay for free), the first thing I'd do is run for the desk, open the drawer, and hide the complimentary flyswatter--because my mother used it to swat ME and not flies...
ReplyDeleteI guess she whacked me because I was a little --it. (That means the flies and I had something else in common. They liked to eat it and I was it.)
No compound eyes are safe in the presence of the Val Swat team.
ReplyDeleteYou need Linda's trick of putting pennies (I think) in a plastic bag with water because it supposedly keeps the flies away... or was that mosquitoes?
ReplyDeletejoeh,
ReplyDeleteThat is impressive. You should hire yourself out. Though one wonders what you are wearing when using your wet bathing suit as a weapon...
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Sioux,
Funny how those golden childhood memories stay with you. My own mother used to whack me semi-regularly with a flyswatter. Not the flappy metal-screen business end, but the wire handle. It kind of smarts. Thank goodness my sister was more of a rebel than I. Many a time I was treated to an exquisitely-choreographed ballet of my sister spinning counterclockwise as Mom grasped her upper left arm with a vice-like grip while spinning like a dervish to administer the whistling wire dissuader to her bare summer-shorts legs.
I'm sure some will shudder in horror, some will throw up their arms in disbelief, and others will check to see if the statute of limitations has expired. But WE TURNED OUT OK, and have never used a flyswatter on our own spawn.
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Leenie,
I will not tolerate the stinkeye from the poop-crawlers.
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Lynn,
It's flies. But I don't think those baggies will hang right on the doors. Besides, Genius would pilfer the pennies for his bank account. I used to pay him 50 cents per dead fly, but he grew greedy and tried to say I promised him a dollar, so we parted our business-partnership ways back when he was 12.