Written in Green Lake, WI, in 1986
Someone left the door open at our house the other day. The mosquitoes and flies didn’t need a second
invitation. I guess they thought we were
a wildlife preserve or something. I
thought God had sent an eleventh plague to Green Lake instead of Egypt.
Mosquitoes are easy to kill.
But flies are smart critters.
They know a fly swat when they see one, and they know when to exit the
room. I’ve studied these beasts for a
week, and I have figured out that you cannot outsmart a fly.
I used to be squeamish about swatting flies. I wouldn’t smear a fly on my window. And nobody – but nobody! – had better wave a
filthy fly swat in my kitchen. As surely
as my kids learned they’d better not drip Pepsi on the floor, they learned
about my fly swat phobia. If they
brandished one in the kitchen, I screamed and sprayed disinfectant and wiped
down all the counters, in case any dust from the nasty thing drifted down in
the area.
Until now.
Last night, my daughter watched aghast as I jumped up from
the sofa, ran into the kitchen, tore back with the fly swat, and smushed a fly
on my lamp shade directly above her bowl of yogurt. Pretty soon, in the kitchen, I wheeled
around, grabbed the swatter, snuck up to the table, and laid a lightning slap
on a fly and yelled, “I got him!”
Whether the change in this mom is permanent remains to be
seen. I’ve got the flies down to one or
two now, I think. I have killed two as I
write this column. I think. Could I be hallucinating? Do you think flies are capable of
brainwashing humans? My children look
worried about me these days.
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