Be vewwy, vewwy quiet, I'm hunting...

I felt a bit like Elmer Fudd last night and this morning, my fly swatter in one hand and hair spray in the other, stalking flies.



I don't have a definitive answer on the hair spray effectiveness yet. Unless you're killing flies in an empty white room, I find it's easy to lose them against the background. I spray, they move, I spray, they move, then I can't find them, but without a little fly corpse, I'm not sure if I've attained the desired result. With the swatter, it's generally easier to tell: either there's a smear* and a body, or I miss completely, or sometimes I seem to have made a partial hit, but can't confirm. Psychologically, though, I think I feel better with another tool in hand, for when they just won't land on a swat-able surface.

*Furthering the gross factor, I now have bug smears here and there: window, ceiling. Ugh. I want to douse the whole place in bleach.

My, this is sounding violent. Seriously, until recently I would have said that flies were an insect that didn't bother me too much. I don't want them flying in my face, but I don't mind that tickle as they land on my arm, and they don't creep me out merely by existing (hello, spiders). I haven't had a bad experience with them (hello bees), until now.

It turns out that invading my home, flying around my kitchen, landing on my toothpaste tube, makes me homicidal. Eww, eww, eww, get away! Go! Leave it! Stop! Die!

Whew. I want to think this campaign is working, but I'm not sure yet. I surely do hope so. I've only seen a couple of flies tonight, so far.

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Work is being rather quiet so far this week, which is a peaceful change. Some people are on vacation, of course, and some out sick (pneumonia in one case and bronchitis in another, pass the Purell please). My dealing with the auto shop and the flat tire yesterday was quite boring in comparison. (End result: new tire, but not as expensive as they first quoted, and the alignment was okay. Plus they drove me to work and picked me up again, which was very handy.) I'm also readjusting after finishing up a big project, one of those "putting an octopus to bed" types of projects (you know, the legs keep popping back out). I still have plenty of work to do, of course, but not that thing, and I haven't fully made the mental shift out of it. It was a huge relief to complete it, after two months of working with a lot of different people (and their schedules).

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Is it really only Tuesday?

I know, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.