WHATEVER FLEW AROUND OLD PHAROAH

Don’t know how I lived so long and not experienced an invasion of fruit flies before this. For my first 18 years I lived in central New York. Lots of houseflies. Once in awhile I’d see a gnat or two. After a rain, sometimes the mosquitoes became a little hungry.  

I lived several decades in Northern New York, a few of those near the St. Lawrence River, where for two weeks every year the shad flies swarmed. Shad flies are a nuisance but relatively harmless as long as you keep your mouth closed. Not so much good for a vehicle though. Driving through these clouds of pests did a number on the front car grids. Signs went up all over for fund raisers inviting car owners to pull over and wash off the shad fly bodies from their cars.

I now live in Jacksonville, Florida and there seems to be no end of critters big and small. I’m finding that the small ones can be the peskiest. After coming back from a writers conference, I was greeted with a houseful of fruit flies. Apparently, they have a fetish for moist cat food. I think some gnats were in the mix because some of the tiny buggers chewed on me.

Researchers aren’t sure what flies plagued old Pharaoh, the fourth in a series of calamities aimed at the Egyptian Gods during the time of Moses. The Hebrew word is awrob translated swarm. We don’t know for sure what kind of swarm it was, but the Bible indicates they were biting insects or could have been a variety of flying creatures. So, I guess I have an idea of how they must have felt with flies to the left, flies to the right, above, beneath, chewed up and afraid to open their mouths.

After invoking a plea to the Almighty, I set about to find a remedy. I tried spraying but gagged on the fumes. I figured there had to be a better way for an asthma sufferer. Someone told me to pour bleach down every drain. I did. However, they didn’t warn me to dilute it. Thankfully, I found this out before doing a second treatment. A friend emailed me an article on how somebody rid themselves of the vermin by using Apple Cider and dish detergent to concoct a bait trap.  http://www.wikihow.com/Kill-a-Fruit-Fly

Something’s working. The fruit fly population is dwindling, and I think the biting companions are gone. Some things simply take time to fix. 


ABOUT LINDA RONDEAU:


Her first book, The Other Side of Darkness, was released by Harbourlights in November, 2011 and won the 2012 Selah Award for best first novel. Her second book, America II: The Reformation, will be released by Trestle Press on July 1, 2012.

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