The Great Fly War--AKA: The Zombie Fly

Shem and I found a colony of flies living in our house yesterday.

It all started last night. I'd just walked in the kitchen after putting Luke to bed to see Shem holding a full cup of water, waiting for a fly he had found to land. He had a disconcerting look on his face that told me there was every possibility that very soon, that full cup of water was going to be an empty cup of water and a huge mess to sop up.

"Whatcha doin'?" I asked hastily.

"Killing that fly." He answered without breaking eye contact from the winged beasty.

"With what?" There was a slight tremor of fear in my voice now.

"With this water. I'm going to drown it." The fly landed lazily on a rung of the blinds, none the wiser that it's ultimate demise was being plotted by my fully grown husband who was brandishing water as his weapon.

Quickly, I grabbed the fly swatter (yes, we have a fly swatter. I know, right?) from behind the fridge, "Honey. How about instead of flooding the kitchen, we use this aptly named device to swat the fly?"

He paused, "I have a better idea."

Uh-oh.

He grabbed the nipple to a bottle which was in the sink, waiting to be cleaned, and filled it with water, "We can't swat it while it's on the blinds; it'll escape. So, I'll startle it with a squirt of water and then you smack it."

I thought this over for a moment and then, deciding that the stream of water was so tiny it couldn't possibly result in flooding, I agreed.

He squirted it, but instead of flying out towards the woman with a fly swatter (go figure) it flew behind the blinds to seek refuge next to the window.

Shem pull the blinds open so I could get it, and that's when it happened: A torrent, a hurricane, an army of flies was released into my kitchen. I'm not kidding you, there were at least 12 flies and they all flew out at the same time. It was like sick, nasty, hairy, buzzy rain fall. I might have screamed a little bit.

It was then that my inner killer was released. I went crazy. I didn't hold back. No one was safe. Letting out a strangled war-cry, I flung that fly swatter as hard and as fast as I possibly could. Shem swiftly left my presence in an attempt to protect himself. (A wise move, I assure you) The flies broke ranks and scattered in every direction. I killed one. I killed another one. They were dropping like...well...you know...flies. Smashing, crashing, screaming...I really didn't care what I hit or where they were killed. I'd killed four before I paused, searching for more.

I found a few, unwisely chilling on my kitchen wall. After a couple more fly casualties, I had killed as many as I could find. I'd definitely won the battle.

It was now time to sweep up their tiny, squished remains. As I was sweeping, one of the dead ones miraculously resurrected, JUMPED at me and flew into my blouse. (People, I couldn't make this up if I tried.) I screamed, spun around in circles (in case you don't know, that's the proper technique for removing flies from your blouse. You can thank me later) and wiped my outfit vigorously in attempts to remove the nasty un-dead zombie fly from my person. I don't know if it worked. But since then, I've changed my clothes and taken a shower so I think it's safe to say it's no longer on me. Crisis (eventually) averted.

I'd won the battle, but not the war. I think I killed a total of six last night. There are at least six more hanging about my abode. I got two this morning. There is one buzzing stupidly against the inside of the blinds in my bedroom as I write this. There was one that flew out at me from behind the shower curtain as I was getting ready for the day (he will pay for his startling trick) And I know there are others. Ohhhh, are there others. Believe me, I WILL find them. And I WILL kill them. And the zombies? I will DOUBLE kill them. That's how serious I am.

They picked the wrong house, guys. The wrong. House.

Walking, Talking, Shouting. Also Music.

Michelle and I have begun to embark on an exercise routine in the morning again. We've been waking up at seven to go for a walk in the park together. I bring Luke. He plays in the leaves. It's a party.

This morning, on my walk back home from the park, I had my ear buds in and was listening to music. I try and keep the volume really low so that I can hear and respond to Luke as he jabbers about the world. Also, so that I can say hi to people who pass and hear what they say back so that I can avoid embarrassing interactions in which a really old lady will speak to me as though I can hear her and I will try to respond as though I heard her and it just doesn't work out because our conversation is like:

Her: My, what a handsome boy you have!
Me: Thanks! You too.

...yeah...

(Not that this story comes from experience. Okay, who am I kidding? Yes it does.)

So, there I am, walking home when I see a big, rather intimidating man who is also wearing headphones, walking toward me. I smile and look down so as to try and avoid interaction with him because I'm the scardiest scardy-cat of all time and was, at the time, imagining all the horrible things the guy would do to me if he were the type of guy to do horrible things to people like me. You can understand my horror then, when he, assuming I had my music blasting, shouted at the top of his lungs, "GOOD MORNING!"

I think I visibly jumped about a foot before regaining my composure, smiling and saying "good morning" back to him. Then I passed him ...and started walking a lot faster.

Overall, it was a really good workout.