You should see how well I’m handling country life.
For instance, I’m learning that old farmhouses come with some interesting critters that, though they may look similar to those that inhabited my home in town – like leggy beetles, arachnids, field mice and ladybugs – the country versions are quite possibly on steroids, and multiply at an alarmingly quick rate.
I know the Carpenter is anticipating my freak out, so I’m doing everything I can to mitigate my phobias. You know me. I’m a live-and-let-live kinda gal, until an insect gets into my personal space and then I will whap it so hard it will become one with the surface it dies on.
For now, I’ll consider them allies, as opposed to friends.
The house flies are unreal. They’ve been acting like drunken frat boys since we arrived in December. These flies are loud, obnoxious, lazy and always buzzing.
When they get hyper and frantic, they’re apt to fly into things like windows and walls, knocking themselves stupid and landing on their backs, flailing their skinny black legs about until they admit defeat and fall into a slumber that convinces the onlooker they are dead. They aren’t though.
If you attempt to remove the carcass, the fly revives itself with a bolt of defiant life-source energy. It never fails to both impress and disgust me.
One nasty fly knows I like to read in bed, so it waits for me to turn on my bedside table lamp each night, as if it’s an invitation to party. He buzzes loudly, throwing himself into the lamp shade like a ping pong ball in a squash court.
It’s like he doesn’t realize the lamp and shade are not a self-contained unit. He could escape simply by choosing to fly up or down. Idiot. It’s downright distracting.
Do I react? No. We’re allies. We can coexist. I’m not going to flip out over a silly house fly. I’m not a scaredy cat.
And then it happened, in the darkness of night, in the deepest of sleep: a fly got stuck in my hair. My long hair. The noise of its panicked buzzing was so loud, so close to my ear, that it was like being startled awake to a dentist’s drill. My eyes flashed open. I flew out of bed like a gymnast (which I would pay for later, because I’m not a gymnast).
I could feel the flutter of the fly’s wings and scratchy legs kicking about for an exit from my loosely braided hair. In a word: ew (that’s a word).
Panicked, I pulled the elastic band from the end of my braid and started flailing my head about like a girl at a White Snake concert. I could feel the fly getting tossed around as I ran my fingers wildly through my mane.
Gross. Gross. Gross. Ew.
I have no idea how far I flung that fly into the universe, but once we were free from one another, I hopped around in the darkness, still shaking my head and chanting curse words. The Carpenter missed the performance.
Flies never bother the Carpenter. There is a joke there, but I’d best fly by.
Fly swatter. Check. Bug spray. Check. Big boots. Check.
I’m living my country life dream, no matter what.
