Late last night as I was shutting the lights off and getting
ready for bed, a very large and angry housefly made the fatal mistake of flying
around my house. To be honest, it was
near-fatal for me, as well.
I saw the big bastard buzzing around as I headed to brush my
teeth. I lost sight of it as it zoomed
into the den, and I figured I'd see it on my way back through. I readied the fly swatter at a handy
position, then I flossed, brushed, and fluoride-swished like someone whose
aging teeth might actually be salvageable.
I grabbed the swatter as I passed through the kitchen again,
and I paced around searching. I admit
that I may have whistled a few times and called out, "Here, little fly,
come and get it," but the damn thing ignored me.
I went up to bed, half-hoping that the fly wouldn't careen
up my nose during the night and half-hoping that maybe it would just to make a
good blog story. I fell immediately into
REM sleep, as is my strange biological habit, and awakened about twenty minutes
later from a bizarre nightmare, making my first floor-walk of the night. I moseyed back down to the kitchen, I don't
really know why -- maybe for water or maybe just because -- where I stood
momentarily in the dark trying to decide if I were truly awake or not.
Suddenly a giant BUZZ wracked my left ear. The damn fly dive-bombed me in the dark. I jumped sideways, picked up the swatter that
I had conveniently left handy (just in case), and began flinging the
plastic-wire-rubberized mallet around the air like a madwoman.
I attacked; the fly retreated and charged anew. Suddenly I was slapping at my calves, my
thighs, my waist, my head with the implement of fly destruction. I wasn't swatting the fly; I was swatting the
crap out of myself, all the while jumping around and making karate noise: "Eeeee-YAH! WAAAAH!
Chaaaaahwooooooo! HEEEYAHAHHHH!" I thought I was the Ninja warrior, but it was
the fly that was the Ninja warrior, and I was the crazy-ass victim who hadn't
the slightest clue what the hell I had gotten myself into.
I spotted the black demon out of the corner of my right eye
and began flailing wildly with the swatter, hoping to whack the horrible insect
right from mid-air. Swoosh, woooooosh, swoooooooosh…
Each wild arc of my arm completely missing its mark.
But then … there it was, hanging in space near me, close
enough for me to get a glancing blow, and down it went, stunned but not yet
mortally wounded. I pounced. Whackwhackwhackwhackwhack! The injured fly rose up like the Phoenix
and started to fly errantly away. Whackwhackwhackwhackwhack!
The table!
Damnit, the fly was on the table!
I didn't care. I went
in for the kill shot, anyway. Guts
spewed, little legs squirmed, until finally the sonofabitch was dead. A Clorox wipe and some paper towels later, the
evidence was gone. Nothing remained but
the fly swatter and the distant memory of my insect-induced wild Watusi kitchen
dance.
I slept fairly soundly for the rest of the night. I'm not sure if I owe that to solving the fly
problem, the exercise of chasing it down, or the thrill of the kill. Thank goodness it went the way it did,
though. The number of times I swatted
myself during the altercation, I'm amazed I didn't fall over and crack my skull
wide open on the counter. Otherwise that
fly would be celebrating over me, and I doubt it would be so kind as to wipe up
with a Clorox sheet when all was said and done.
I'll leave you all with a little philosophical bull-tickey:
The Fly
by William Blake
Little fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink and sing,
'Til some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die?
