New Dad

This started out as a Dad's perspective on my wife Katrina's pregnancy and a way to keep the family updated. Alina arrived in February 2006 and now it's more about our parenting adventures. Now we've added Evelyn in July 2008.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Dad vs The Fruit Fly

Is there an apple under my couch somewhere? Is there something unholy going on inside our potted plant? The vegetable eating iguana? The fishes? The cat? The flowers? Where do they come from and why are they here?? DIE! I've been doing battle with these little fuckers morning and night. Sometimes the wife just doesn't understand why I get so insane during battle. It's because it's BATTLE. I get to kill things! And sometimes it's the best part of my day after the long monotonous sludge that is the E Train and a Human Resources career.

My methods of fruity genocide have have varied over the weeks. We started out just clapping our hands at them as if they were mosquitoes. Even Alina got into it, saying "I got the bug!" after clapping her hands, even though she didn't. Just useless, this two-year old is sometimes - time to start carrying some weight, kid. So hand clapping was futile. They're just too fast. Lysol and/or citrus room spray was effective in dropping them but it got too extreme on the lungs and eyes. "Ahh! It burns!" Lysol with a lighter - now that was fun but inefficient and let's be honest, dangerous. Every teenage boy had a pyro period. It was fun to re-visit. Next, I tried a vacuum to suck them out of the air using the narrow hose attachment. Also fun, but limiting because of the power cord and I couldn't tell if they actually DIE DIE! Wielding a half roll of paper towels came next. It equipped me with not only a killing tool but a cleanup supply as well. These things bleed red! Hell, as long as it's theirs. It took a great deal of focus to wind up enough speed and accuracy to do the deed correctly. I felt like that spirit on the subway in "Ghost" who could move things with his mind if he concentrated enough. "All your love, all your anger, all your hate and you let it EXPLODE LIKE A REACTOR!" If you go too slow, you miss. Then my mother showed up with a metal mesh fly swatter. So....simple, so fast. But, as I mentioned, they leave a mark. The solution, which brings me to the present, is to scare them off the wall or ceiling and then swat in mid-air. They either get stuck in the mesh and DIE on impact or they get sent across the room and DIE DIE DIE! I try to send them in the same direction, which is evident if you look in our bathtub or on that big yellow stuffed bunny in the corner of the dining room. We'll probably need to burn that thing .... with Lysol and a lighter perhaps.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I feel your pain with the fruit flies. Every year they show up and I wonder where the hell they come from particularly in certain parts of the house. Nothing worse than sitting on the can having one of them bastards buzzing around you. I tried many techniques to take them out. A small skill I've gotten good at is to catch them in flight as they fly past and then dispose of it under running water. When you can grab the fruit fly in flight you will be kung fu master. LOL Of course my more recent efficient means was to invest in some cheap sticky fly strips to hang from the ceiling. It did effectly snag 3 of them but unfortunately it seems the fruit fly season is over because I haven't seen any recently. Very disappointing. I was hoping to fill the strip up with fruit fly carcasses. :)

2:54 AM, June 02, 2008  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home