Flies

For some reason, we have a lot of flies here where we live.  They crawl in around the edges of the windows, which are the kind that open like little doors and buzz slowly around the room, sounding like a fleet of small airplanes whose mission is to drive humans crazy.  Some are very loud and large, and specialize in buzzing like chainsaws.  Others are small and pesky and light on your nose or buzz round and round your face until you have to kill them.  A great many appear to be despondent and take their lives by diving into cups of coffee, glasses of milk, etc., often just when you are lifting it to your lips.  We keep a swatter handy and swat them (with extreme prejudice) all day long.

I have tried opening the windows on the theory that more of them would be free to leave that way, but Mike and Chris are skeptical of this theory and insist that all that happens is that more come in.  When evening comes most of them crawl back out the windows, I guess, because they disappear.

Because it gets cold at night the ones that are still in the house stop moving.  There are always dead ones on the window sill (whether from natural causes or the cockroach poison that we spray on the windows I don't know).  This morning I dusted all the dead ones off the window sill, and was interrupted before I swept the floor.  When I came back, about four of them were crawling around.  We all know what to do with crawling bugs--so we stomped them.

We thought the flies were just a problem here in the property where we live, because the owners have a big garden and sometimes keep chickens. But we have obtained proof to the contrary.  There is a one-legged lady who has  a little store about a block away.  One day I passed it and there she was, leaping around on her one leg, swatting flies.  Living proof both that the flies are all over this part of town, and that they will drive you crazy.