The little buggers are everywhere in this house, and while I admit that I'm not the cleanest spoon in the drawer (which reminds me, I should probably clean out the silverware drawer. It's filthy.), there is an awe inspiring number of zippy buzzing beasts who, I think, enjoy torturing us.
So let's try to get at the heart of this matter. WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?!
Zone 1: The front door. I have absolutely no idea why, but opening the front door triggers a swirling chain reaction. Like they're sitting there, waiting to pounce. Going in or out of this door requires speed and agility, and since Avery walks as slow as a rock talks, and Savannah's arthritis, curmudgeonly demeanor in general, and long-ass toenails that I keep forgetting to trim make it damn near impossible for her to make the two step ascent into the house? Well, we just try to avoid this door altogether. Yesterday, the little blondes next door rang the doorbell, and I pretended like I didn't hear it (the flies are only part of the reason why). Working for me in this scenario is that our doorbell is busted and only makes a faint fart of a dong, and Morgan didn't hear it because she was upstairs in her room, so I only had to pretend that Avery was crazy for hearing something. "Mommy, did you hear that noise?" "No baby, what noise? There wasn't a noise." "But I heard something. It was a ding." "Huh? Did you say something? Oohhhhhh, look, Avery! Something bright and shiny over there!" Her flea-like attention span partnered up with me and we were able to avoid a buggy disaster.
Zone 2: The garage door. Two Corona Light/Miller Light/Mike's Lemonade/Occasional wine bottle filled recycling bins and a 40 gallon trash can (the kind with the lid that serves no purpose) probably have something to do with the flies in the garage. No surprise there. This zone doesn't really bother me because it's "normal."
Zone 3: The kitchen door. This one gets a lot of traffic thanks to the four dogs, two kids, one servant (me), running in and out all day long on nice days. I try to keep the door closed in between entrances and exits, but the creatures in my house are fickle, indecisive little poops, so the second I let Cooper out and she realizes I'm not going along, she "WOOFS" to come back in. Or we go out and Savannah realizes, after we shut the door behind us, that this is a good chance to pee, so she'll start barking her turrets bark until I open the back door...again. Or Avery goes out to feed the fish, and because Morgan is engrossed in another episode of "The Backyardigans" I don't want to bother her to see if she wants to go out, too. Then she magically realizes that Avery gets to feed the fish and she DOESN'T which ISN'T FAIR, MOMMY! and then the drama queen who is 5 going on 13 hyperventilates and runs up to her room and slams the door. I failed that one, huh? So the bottom line is that if we were to do the math and tally up the total number of minutes the door is open in one day, it might be something like 2.35 hours. And that is 2.34 hours too many, and 2.34 hours those freaking flies have to bum rush my house. The wasps? The bees? The birds? The fleas? Yeah, no. Just the flies.
So that's how they get in (I think those are the only entrance points. I HOPE those are the only entrance points).
And you know what's disturbing? Some of them are small little newborns, and others are big fat suckers. I find myself pondering a frightening question - are they procreating in my house? Are there little maggoty larvae cooking up nice and big and fat and plump somewhere where I eat and sleep? Granted, I eat and sleep in a house whose carpet is 95% covered in pee and poo stains, human and canine, and NO, I'm not exaggerating (a carpet cleaning service came out to give me an estimate and after the guy dragged a little metal prong thingy all over the carpets, obnoxiously pinging every time it detected pee, which was constantly, I was basically told that he couldn't help me and that I should just get new carpets). But ay, here's the rub - Let's talk about the piano room. The one right off the kitchen where it's only a piano room because there's a piano in it. It should be called the Dropped My Popsicle Again and Didn't Tell Mommy-Let's Squish Orbeez Balls Into the Carpet-Crush up some Crackers-Drop Mac N Cheese-Have a Potty Training Accident More Than Once-Dog Urinal and Personal Potty Room. Savannah is getting older and I think she's having accidents. Sydney's pee is so small you can't tell when it happens. So it sits there, rotting. Deagan, however, knows where Sydney pees because he likes to Alpha dog pee on top of it. Savannah and Sydney both like to poo in there. Every morning. It smells in there. There's no fancy way to say it. I can smell its uriny odor from the kitchen - more so on warm days. And back to that carpet guy? He told me that when I steam clean with my amateurish 80 lb. steam cleaner, that I'm basically making the problem worse because I'm just pushing the pee all over the place, and it's never really GONE. Great. Just great. But I can't get new carpet NOW, right? This shit is just gonna keep happening! So I deal with it.
But wait...the flies! Um, yeah, they LOVE the Pee-Pee room! A no-brainer, right? Every day they are guaranteed a meal, so like sharks circling my legs in the water, I KNOW those suckers are in there waiting to bite through an artery. In fact, they like to DANCE in crazy flirty circles underneath the chandelier that hangs in there. Yes, you heard me correctly. They DANCE!!! It's a tightly wound, compact whirlwind waltz of flies; there are usually 2-5 dancing at a time. Strangely entertaining, it's also just plain old gross, so I decided to do something about it. It all started with the kitchen towels, and using them as Jack and the boys used their spear on that poor sow who took it "right up her ass" (Thanks, William Golding, for the image), I proceeded to hunt them with delirious abandonment. Well, that's how I felt about tracking these flies. They were taunting me, laughing at me with their macabre grins and zippy escape routes, alighting mockingly on my coffee mug and the kids' eggs. Yuck! Bastards! While it felt good to "sneak up" on them like a misguided "lost boy" or something, and while I occasionally connected with their shockingly well-armored little bodies, it just wasn't enough. There were always MORE flies in MORE places, and when one almost flew up my nose as I was sitting on the sofa, I said, ENOUGH!!!!!
Hence the Google search for "how to get fly paper glue out of hair."
Enough said about that.
Once the fly traps were up and running (because apparently they are incredible specimens of technological advancement), we've seen a significant decline in the amount of "fly-to-human" contact. And here's why!!!!!
Kitchen ceiling (the one that stuck in my hair)
Dropped My Popsicle Again and Didn't Tell Mommy-Let's Squish Orbeez Balls Into the Carpet-Crush up some Crackers-Drop Mac N Cheese-Have a Potty Training Accident More Than Once-Dog Urinal and Personal Potty Room:
Closer look at it...
But don't be so grossed out. I have a tendency to try to warn bugs of their ultimate demise; a visual deterrent, if you will. At school this past year, we had a bit of a fruit fly problem. As I sat at my desk, the little fruit flies would buzz around me, and I'd often find myself impulsively slapping at them, much to the entertainment of my students who probably thought I looked a little (more) nuts! And every now and then I'd connect! I'd burst a tiny little body into a bloody bump right in between my palms! But what to do with it, then? Why, wipe it on a piece of paper, circle it, draw an arrow to it and write the exclamation, "Die, Bugs, Die!" as a warning to all of its measly friends! Mwaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa haaaa! Yes, the dead bug wall filled up over the next month or so, and it sure was a morton-ish decorated spotting of disgusting death. It was AMAZING!!!! But, it didn't act as the warning that I thought it would, and my fly paper strips at home don't keep the flies out of the house, but at least I get to gaze at them everyday and think, "WINNING!"
Yay, me. Ralph, Simon, and Piggy would be proud.
Oh, and one more literary reference that I can't resist?
"Fucking Flies"
- Richard Thinbill, of Tim O'Brien's novel, In the Lake of the Woods
Sorry, Mom. They're O'Brien's words.
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