"Seven with one blow." From the fairly tale, "The Brave Little Tailor." I can do better than that. My writing workshop is in the finished half of the basement, a sort of man-cave, which I mostly like a lot. I rarely get disturbed, and never accidentally, I have room to set out the various knickknacks and other potpourri to theoretically give me inspiration, or at least pleasant recollections. I also, right now, have (ideally had) an infestation of houseflies. It started off with a single annoying fly buzzing around my lamp, which I'd either swat or swat at, and go on with work. But it got worse, especially at night, a fly would burst out of darkness into the light, and often as not, into my face. I got tired of swatting at the fly, so I got a flypaper ribbon and hung it from my lamp. Almost immediately I got a bite. The fly had gotten its feet stuck and buzzed annoyingly to get free, then kind of did a modified back-flip and got its wings stuck. It was clearly not going anywhere, but watching the struggle, which my vision was drawn to like to an accident on the freewa,y it began to get depressing. Flies, after all, are sentient beings, annoying and dirty little things, but capable probably of at least minimal sensations of fear and frustration. So I moved the flypaper to a place out of direct sight and hearing. But fly-bys began happening regularly, albeit still singly, as though the flies were doing a tag-team thing. So I got some clear flypaper that one sticks on a window, and flies land on it and never rise again. The basement windows are perfect for that. I did that, and things got pretty quiet, though there was still the occasional annoying buzz-by. When I looked up at the paper on the window, it was almost dark with flies, most dead, some still struggling. That was a bit unsettling, beginning to feel Hitchock-ian. Then I got a spray called Eco-Smart Flying Insect Killer, which consists of some serious "essential plant oils," guaranteed to kill flies on contact but safe around humans and pets. It seems to work. And smells nice, albeit a bit strong immediately after use Things are quiet now, and perhaps will stay that way. This happened once before, back before I had my workshop here. The theory then was that somewhere deep in the bowels of the basement a mouse had died, and a mother fly laid her eggs in the body, they mostly all hatched, and voila, a swarm. But a swarm that doesn't last. At least that's what happened last time, and I'm trusting will be the case again. Just in case, I keep my Eco-Smart close by.
