Mark Flider’s Blog

Since I don’t have a category for “creepy, kafka-esque shit”, I’ll just file this under “General” for now. This is the tale of me and like twenty flies.

But before I forget, isn’t that post title hilarious? Because I’m writing about a lot of flies! haha!

It all started on Monday. Or Sunday. Let’s say Monday. I noticed that there was a fly in my apt, buzzin’ about being all nosy as flies are often wont to do. But then I noticed another fly. I figured I could easily outlast them in a game of “How Long is your Lifespan?”, so I let it be.

Now that I think about it, I think it was Sunday.

Anyway, the following day those two flies were just a-buzzin’ around, as happy as can be. That’s when the trouble started. I looked up, and saw a third fly. Now this is getting serious. To make matters worse, it was headed for my kitchen! Aghast, and with no small amount of hesitation, I laid my laptop down and followed it into the kitchen where I was met with… oh god like five more flies! What the hell people.

I looked around for open food containers or, I dunno, a rotting banana, knowing full well that I wouldn’t even own a banana, let alone keep it out in a place where something living and visible would have access to it. Alas, nothing could be found, and tracking their flight patterns, I found no region of interest (ROI) that would provide some clue as to the flies’ attraction to my kitch.

So after I hung a few strips of duct tape from various places in my kitchen (note: this does not actually work, it turns out), I walked into my hallway to find even more flies. Now it has become an endemic. After silently crying to myself, I uncurled from a fetal position on the floor and set to work. This called for a three-prong attack:

1. Deception. As everyone knows, flies are attracted to light, like moths to a flame, because they think the light is the sun, and — a little-known fact about flies — they suffer from hubris, causing them to soar higher and higher into the sky, until the glue that holds their wings together melts and they come crashing into the ocean, never to be seen again. Tactically turning my lights on and off to get them into position, combined with gusts of paper-generated wind and a quick opening of my door, tricked quite a few of the little beasts from my darkened apartment out into the lit hallway, where they promptly disappeared from my sight and hence no longer existed.

2. Attack. Using a rolled up paper towel roll, I bopped them lightly enough to cause them to be unable to move quickly — but not hard enough to cause a fountain of icky fly juice — leaving them a twitching mess on the floor, ready for Step 3:

3. Disposal. I vacuumed their bodies up. I really hope that killed them.

Over the next few days I found bodies littered on the floor near my windows, which I promptly Step 3′d. As the days went by I found fewer and fewer bodies. Today was the second day in a row where there was only one body, so I’m hoping that was the last.

Since I don’t really have a punchline or a moral to this story, I’ll end with a joke:

Q. What has four wheels and flies?

A. A garbage truck that’s missing a ton of wheels, apparently.

Posted 2 years, 5 months ago, under General, Pittsburgh.
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