Lord of the flies...not exactly...chapter 7

Early the next morning, there were more shrieks.

"What now?" I asked, jumping out of bed and running down the hall.

There in the kitchen were two or three of the large flies, one buzzing around, one on the light, one in the window. Grabbing a flyswatter, I smashed two, leaving gobs of goo on the window and light. It took a few minutes to bag the other one.

"Why are they here? How are they getting in?" frantically inquired the wife. "They're from the Amazon." I assured her it must just be the season, and she needn't worry. They were gone.

"At least the smell isn't as bad," I reassured her, trying to change the subject to something more unpleasant.

Her tolerance was decreasing with the smell, but I didn't point that out, and we went to work.

That afternoon she arrived home earlier than me, and I received a frantic phone call.
"More flies!" she yelled, her tolerance decreasing even more.

When I got home, I found her huddled in the bedroom, door shut, watching Oprah. Indeed, there were a few more flies, some on the windows, others on the cabinets. Their time of life was brief.

Another shriek from the bedroom, and I found two in the windows in there. Their fate was certain, even if our marriage was not at that moment.

"How are they getting in?" I had no answer and walked down the hall to the kitchen, to get a drink of water.

More flies. Less tolerance. More swats. More goo. More shut doors.

"Where are they getting in, where are they coming from?" I asked myself. She had the answer, "They've got to becoming from that thing in the wall." I started to protest, but considering the 100 degree temperature outside, I knew she was right.

I didn't mention to her my image of squirming maggots a few feet away in the wall of our dining room. She already knew. I opened the bottom cabinets to get a pan, and the odor of the thing was stronger. Somehow, the flies had to be getting in through the cabinets.

The wife opposed poisoning and protested using any. Again she did research on the Internet and called another exterminator, who told her the egg cycle was about two to three weeks. She did learn they were called "flush flies."

I learned from experience that they kept coming, and did use the flyswatter often, because they would be there in the morning when we woke up, and in the afternoon when we came home, no matter how many had been dispatched. Then it was that I got Raid and began spraying under the cabinets. It had to be there that they were coming in, but I couldn't see where.

That afternoon, I came home to more flies, but some were dead on the floor and others were sluggish and easy to kill. Progress!

Progress comes in small stages however, and takes time...

to be continued...