In the Throes

Well, everybody, it's time once again for our annual Gibbs/Margoshes Fruit Fly Infestation Extravaganza! This is a joyous time filled with mirth and festivities for all ages. There's the Stand 'n' Clap, in which my father stands over the fruit bowl with his hands several inches apart, waiting until a lone fruit fly propels itself upward in an act of resignation (at which point my grandma looks up from her newspaper and asks, with great interest, "Did you get it?"). Then we have the Death Saber, wherein we all take turns dragging the vacuum cleaner around the kitchen and sucking up flies with the extension hose while a second person shakes the plants and flower vases. And finally there's the Sweet Nectar of Revenge, which consists of me filling Mason jars with apple cider vinegar and fashioning death funnels out of printer paper to attach to the top. Yes it's grotesque, and yes the one on the back of the toilet looks a lot like a jar of urine, but I can't tell you how downright fascinating it is to watch these traps in action. Hovering in front of the kitchen sink while an unsuspecting fly marches down the paper tube to its death; watching sixty or so of the little effers swarming toward the side of the jar closest to the window, hoping that if they all push hard enough at the same time the glass will give way.  Even my cat, who has demonstrated intense suspicion of the vacuum in the past, can't mask the delight in her eyes when we wheel it into the kitchen. It's just so much fun.

Gotta love that Death Saber.

What is not fun, however, is having this problem to begin with. Until recently, I seemed to be the only member of the household who noticed that our yearly infestations just so happened to coincide with my brother's winery's grape crush and the eight tons of grapes fermenting in plastic bins in our basement. Last night, implicating himself at least partially in the fruit fly breeding ground that our house has become, Pasha taped newspaper over the heating vent in the bathroom because he suspected the flies were using it as their own personal portal to and from the basement. This fire hazard would undoubtedly alarm any sane person, but we freaks will stop at nothing to fuel this genocide, even if it means taking our house down, too.

If I weren't so busy falling into the clutches of sweet, sweet villainy I would be impressed by the resilience of these things. Pasha spent a good ten minutes in the bathroom last night sucking them up with the vacuum, and even though he claimed to have gotten "at least 95%" of them, this morning when I went to take a shower a great black plume burst forth when I slid open the curtain. You've got to hand it to them: fruit flies are highly efficient procreators.

I should probably be embarrassed by how easily I have yielded to these obnoxious pests, and by my willingness to share my abovementioned breakdown here with all you fives of readers, but I'm not. The way I see it, everyone reading this already knows how much of a freak I am. The damage is already done. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some vacuuming to do.