Lord of the Fruit Flies

It’s a never-ending battle. Just when you think you have them beat, they magically reappear. And in greater numbers. The thing I want to know is…where in the heck are they coming from?

Ever since we got back from our little mini-vacation to Maine last week, we’ve been at war with legions of fruit flies that have infiltrated our home. You leave a couple bananas out on the counter, and the next thing you know you’re living in a Hitchcockian nightmare.

And yes, we’ve tried all the Internet remedies. They don’t work. My wife even made a few of those funnel-in-a-glass-of-vinegar thingamabobs, which are supposed to attract, trap, and then drown the little buggers. But all they do is set up camp at the top of the funnel and take in the enticing vinegar aroma.

There is one thing I’ve found, however, that actually does work: Windex. Stay with me here…

Since I didn’t have any bug spray on hand (and, honestly, I don’t want to be spraying Raid all over my kitchen counter) I decided to see if Windex would do the job. To my surprise, not only does it immobilize the annoying little pests so that I can then smash them with a paper towel, it also allows me to kill and clean at the same time. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Before this latest infestation, we’d been dealing with those hideous thousand-leggers—a.k.a., the dragons of the insect world. This one time Boogieface went to use the potty, and the next thing you know she lets out a bloodcurdling scream like the little girl in “Aliens”, when that monstrous, face-sucking, squid-like thingy hatches and is about to attack. Only in this case it was a thousand-legger which had crawled out from under the toilet while my daughter was trying to pee.

Luckily, we had finally gotten to a point when those ultra-fast creepy-crawlers had become few and far between. Now the fruit flies. Wonderful.

Say what you want about rabbits, nothing breeds faster than a fruit fly. I remember in high school, when we were doing experiments on them in biology class, and someone accidentally let theirs excape. The next thing you knew the entire school was infested. It’s the same thing here. I kill a dozen or so in the bathroom, go into the kitchen and do the same, and when I come back to the bathroom just minutes later, there’s already a couple dozen more. The birds and bees ain’t got nothing on fruit flies.

I’m sure they will eventually die off, probably right around Christmas. Until then I’ll continue to wage my Windex war.

At least my home will have that streak-free shine. ~

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Copyright © 2016 Valentine J. Brkich