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Boy, was I wrong.
Had leftovers for dinner, good, but not great. The meal was a bit heavier than expected, as I don't like to eat anything really substantial after a certain time, I knew I might be in trouble.
But no, my stomach was fine.
The first call of nature (normally there are at least two, comes with the territory, age and a small bladder) occurred at 23:10 local. No biggie, I thought, we've been here before.
However ...
In the throne room I espied a fly, yes, an insect probably recently hatched, that was nearly the size of a C-17 Globemaster, and far louder.
Now normally I'm a real "live and let live" kind of guy. Lady bugs, spiders, and the like will be shown the door rather than being swatted on sight. Not so with flies. Disease carriers who serve a very useful function in the wild. The interior of Chez Sarge is not the wild.
So I endeavored to end this buzzing annoyance before returning to bed. Thing is, the upstairs throne room at Chez Sarge has lots of nice things which don't take kindly to being hit with a fly swatter. I couldn't destroy the village to save the village¹, it would be expensive and no doubt incur the wrath of The Missus Herself. (Something I try to avoid, though both daughters tell me I need to try "harder.")
So there I was (nope, not the start of a war story) trying to down this fly without destroying various things in the bathroom. Said things being the things the gorram fly chose to land on to take breaks, I guess. He was pretty quick for a big old fly in the cold of a mid-March evening.
Little bastard fought hard, after about fifteen minutes I no longer heard his buzzing. Little fire-trucker had gone to ground he had. I waited, quiet-like, for the wee beastie to re-appear. After a good five minutes, nada, nichts, nothing. So back to bed I went.
"Damn! It's nearly midnight!" I cried out, though softly so as not to wake The Missus Herself.
Yes, my Precious, it was late, I scored perhaps five and a half hours of sleep, fitful at best. I kept having a recurring bizarre dream in which I was arguing with Sir Winston Churchill about Gallipoli.
Maybe it was something I ate ...
¹ An apocryphal "quote" from Vietnam by a left-leaning "journalist." Is there any other kind?
Maybe it was Vincent Price's "Fly" Sarge? Did you hear anything other than buzzing? Heelp me.........Heelp meeeee...........
ReplyDeleteOh he was saying something, probably "How do I get away from this insane human?!"
DeleteTake a short nap at lunch and hope for a better night tonight!
ReplyDeleteManagement rather frowns upon us doing that.
DeleteThey care what you do at lunch? I can see that, too bad. A 20 min nap these days is nice!
DeleteI have never been able to nap, just makes me more tired.
DeleteI've had great luck with those Walmart electronic tennis racket like bug zappers. Both in ariel combat, and by hovering above them letting them fly off of the delicate thing and zapping themselves.
ReplyDeleteAnd it sounds like fun!
DeleteThere's a clever little gadget that shoots grains of salt at flies. Fun and effective.
ReplyDeleteBoat Guy
I can hear it now, "Who sprayed salt all over the bathroom?!?"
DeleteSo of course, now I want one.
Second the electronic zapper tennis racket. Wife adores it except when the bug is staying at the ceiling.
ReplyDeleteI must seek out these miracle devices. Tennis racket bug zapper and salt gun, Amazon, here I come!
DeleteThere is nothing more annoying than hearing a mosquito buzzing in and out of range at night in the dark when you cannot see them and are trying to go to sleep...
ReplyDeletePsychological torture!
DeleteThen the buzzing stops and you tensely await the bite. The only thing worse is finding a wood tick crawling on you. You feel phantom crawling all night long.
DeleteYikes!
DeleteWe have found that the citrus (orange) oil based air fresheners make a good fly killer. A short burst onto the critters and they drop, well, like flies. You do have to get it on them. But it does the job, smells good, and is not toxic to humans and pets.
ReplyDelete(grump) the above was from me, myself.
DeleteAnother weapon in the arsenal!
DeleteSigh, Gulag strikes again.
DeleteNah....just didn't check to see what my phone was saying this morning.
DeleteCopy that.
DeleteWe here, at the Beans' Household, have had to take extreme measures against insect invasions from outside and within (like, you know, the drains, man, flies coming out of the drains, it's why they're called drain flies...) Between keeping all drains plugged with mesh screens or actual plugs when not in use and a house interior bug zapper, we manage to keep out a good portion of Florida wildlife.
ReplyDeleteWe just can't use our front door light during mosquito season.
Florida, I've visited there, bug nightmare. Though not as bad as the North African desert or the tundra in summer. You want flies? Go to either place.
DeleteOrdering food after hours in the summer is a pain, can't leave the exterior light on for the driver, otherwise they'd be carried off by the mosquitos!
Crusty OId TV Tech here. NOTHING is as bad as Black Flies in the woods of Central NY state in the summer, nope, nothing! Damn things are the size of a regulation house fly, but swarm around anything that moves and has blood. They fly faster than an F-106 on full AB, and only need to land for milliseconds to cut a plug of flesh and take off again. And those sawtooth choppers, man, bleeding, pain, yelling and cussing that follows the fly's departure. Even SE Texas skeeters (one pulled up to Ellington and asked for 150 pounds of JP-4 once!) are lightweights in comparison.
ReplyDeleteNow, if you want to get the Base Commander hereabouts riled up, just let one "waterbug" roach show up in Casa de Crusty. I get shoes, books, small dogs thrown at me to use in dispatching the beastie!
I have seen those central NY flies!
Delete