Shoo fly pie

I wish this post was about pie. yum. In fact it could be, i just got off the phone with my mom and she is going to send me a recipe for key lime pie. but i digress. This post is about our beloved friends.... the house fly. The line in the title is a lyric from some old swing song that somehow is in my repertoire of pointless music knowledge.

Here is a lovely picture is case you forgot what a disturbingly disgusting animal it is. Just in case that wasn't enough here is a little background on flies:

"Houseflies can take in only liquid foods. They spit out saliva on solid foods to pre-digest it, and then suck it back in. They also vomit partially digested matter and eat it again."

lovely, huh?

So why the sudden interest with flies? you ask. Well, because they are the bane of my existence. (yes i know, i'm exaggerating)

here is the story:

imagine yourself, lying in bed on a peaceful Sunday morning. Thinking about how you need to get up and finish preparing your talk for church, but not willing to succumb to your alarm clock quite yet. When suddenly you hear a noise. bsssssssss. It makes you flinch. Your hand naturally tries to swat and your eyes jerk open. Just in time to see a fly circling your room. Frustrated, you close your eyes again, intent on salvaging the last few minutes of rest in your bed. not more than 10 seconds later you have deja vou as the fly decides to interrupt your rest... yet again. This time more frustrated you open your eyes and hope that you can swat it down without getting out of bed. multiple attempts later the fly is still flying around your room. You try pulling your sheet over your head, but the soft cotton threads don't function as much of a sound barrier. You wonder how the fly knows exactly where to fly to cause you the most disturbance. Almost ten minutes later you finally get out of bed. you see the fly and glare at it as your make your way out of the room. what better way to start a day than with malicious thoughts towards a fly.

okay, that may not be the most dramatic story or experience ever but i was SOO frustrated. seriously, the fly was driving me crazy. And to make it worse, i re-lived the experience this afternoon during my much-needed sunday nap. Fortunately (for my sanity) I successfully swatted the fly down and found much joy in the experience.

I heard a girl at church talking about how they were having a "fly problem" in their apartment. She happens to live right above me and i'm very curious just exactly why they have this "fly problem" and why it seems to have become my problem as well.

I've decided one of my least favorite sounds is the sound of a fly. I don't think i would mind them so much if it wasn't for their obnoxious noise! oh, and the feeling when one lands on you. gross. And, they are so evasive! seriously, my simple swatting was not going to work to bring down this fly. I did a little research about flies and this is what i found. maybe it will come in handy next time a fly tries to torment me. And hopefully you can use it too :)

"Flies have a very highly-evolved evasion reaction which helps to ensure their survival. It is possible to confuse a fly's evasion system by swatting it with two objects simultaneously from different directions. The holes in a fly swatter minimise the air current which warns the fly of being hit, whilst reducing air resistance and increasing speed of the swat. This evasion reaction can also be used against the fly. Clapping your hands several inches above the fly will cause it to try to escape, usually into your just closing hands. A successful method of removing flies from living spaces is to use a vacuum cleaner equipped with a long (1m/3 feet)straight tube at the end of a flexible hose. Airborne flies can be chased with the tube and will eventually be sucked into it. Standing flies can be approached slowly with the tube (1cm/half-an-inch per second) and often they will not fly away and will be sucked into it."