Sunday, August 2, 2020

The only good fly is a dead fly


     Summer means long sunny days, more time to enjoy the outside, but also flies.

     We had one in the house yesterday afternoon. For normal households this is only a slight annoyance. For one of us in the family it’s catastrophic. Mamie cringes around, shaking, staring at the ceiling, glued to my side like a barnacle. 




          So, after dinner off we all went to Home Despot, arriving ten minutes before closing. We all hustled in, found the correct aisle, grabbed a product I hadn’t seen before – clear sticky strips you attach to your window, which are supposed to attract and trap flies. Knowing that otherwise the dog would likely be huddled trembling next to me in bed all night, I would have happily bought a Venus flytrap the size of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

          I marched around the house, pasting the traps to windows, and for good measure, a lamp, plus the door coming in from the garage. The fly must have known we were up to no good because he didn’t show his face for the rest of the night. Mamie simmered down a little, burrowing next to me between a pillow and the couch. I had shut the bedroom door in the hope that the fly would limit its patrol to the rest of the house.

          This morning I checked all the traps. Nothing.

          I even tried adding to the bait by staging an empty butter container on a window sill. Nothing. Maybe the fly had keeled over in the night. I have no idea of the life span of a housefly. But then Mamie scurried into the kitchen, stopping to laser me with a panicked stare. The fly was back. I wandered ineffectually around, finding nothing. The dog would just have to pull up her socks and be brave.

          Then while changing the bed, I glanced over at the window. There it was, lounging on its elbow on the windowsill, nowhere near the supposedly alluring sticky trap. I happened to have the white bedspread in my hand, and did the only thing possible, smashing my snowy bed covering into the window.

          It took an hour or so, but Mamie finally relaxed, loosening up enough to weasel some of our cream-cheesed bagels from us.

          Except we’re not out of the woods yet. As I write this, I can hear the distant rumble of an approaching thunderstorm.

12 comments:

  1. First a dreaded fly, then an approaching thunderstorm. To your little sweetie dog it seems like a horror film.

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  2. Poor thing! I hope those fly traps will catch something, sooner or later. :-)

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  3. OMG Mamie is hilarious!Our dog ate flies and then complained about how spicy they were- for hours!

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  4. Life in shutdown still has it's entertainment. I've had a couple of houseflies, too, and have left them to the cat.

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  5. Wow, she is a sensitive little thing, isn't she? I wish I only had one fly. With people coming and going and opening the door for the cat throughout the day, we often have more than one. It is now coming up to fruit fly season, with tomatoes and peaches sitting out on countertops. I have hung sticky strips (not against windows, but hanging vertically from the ceiling) when it gets bad. -Jenn

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  6. Are you sure it is an approaching thunderstorm and not the rumble of fifty million housefly relatives coming to the funeral of a family member?
    For Mamie's sake, I hope it is a thunderstorm, although if I remember she is afraid of those too?

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  7. A dog afraid of flies is a new one to me.

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    1. There a dog in our complex, Baxter, who must weigh a good 70 lbs. His owner has confessed that he (the dog, not the owner) suffers from the same phobia.

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  8. Oh, Mamie. I've heard of a lot of timid dogs but never one afraid of house flies! That's hilarious.

    We just had a fly caught in a spider web over our patio doors, buzzing frantically trying to escape. Finally the spider bound it up and killed it. Took long enough, though!

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  9. I am hoping you have heard of fly swatters. They work fine here. My grand-dog (photo in my last post) looks just like your little critter. Our grand-dog just stares at the flies.

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    1. I'll swallow the sarcastic comment that first sprang to my lips and just say that you have to find the little pests first.

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