Okay. So. Picture something with me.
You and your partner drive 18 hours to Nevada; you sleep one night on the road in a truck at a rest stop where you can see so many stars you start to ponder your existence, but the cowboy beans and little smokies simmering on the camp stove call you back to the present.
It’s a whirlwind trip full of amazing sights and questionable crowds. You go to the grocery store to get some snacks—you’re on a budget, after all—and pick out a harmless bag of mandarins. You take them back to the little motel with the suspicious odors and crooked doors.
You see the Hoover Dam and gap at the expanse of the Grand Canyon, failing to capture any level of its magnitude via picture. You again begin to ponder life’s meaning—you’re brought back into your body by your partner who puts their arm around you and says something that makes you laugh and forget about how many people have died there.
It’s time to make the long drive back home. You notice the mandarins, innocently sitting on the counter. “We should take them, right?” you say. Your partner shrugs, agrees. The mandarins come—a good road snack, right? Right??
Many long hours and one pitstop later, you finally pull into your driveway, ready to collapse, so tired of being in a car you feel like screaming. You unload the truck in haste, depositing everything in a heap at the end of the bed. All is well as soon as your head hits the pillow.
But lo! What is this?? Come the morning you begin the odious process of unpacking a week’s worth of road trip memorabilia, and upon lifting the bag of innocent mandarins, a swarm of fruit flies rush into the air—“Ah, beans,” you think—but before you can even blink they’re gone in every direction.
“It’s probably fine,” you try to assure yourself, “How many could there possibly be? They should go away on their own.”
But lo, dear reader. Lo.
A week passes—the fruit flies have created a colony in the bathroom, collecting on damp cloths, scattering at the slightest movement. “They’re sure to go away,” you say, less sure now. You put out cups of apple cider vinegar. They drown by the dozens, yet still, more flee from every hidden place.
Another week. No change. You begin to see fruit flies in your dreams.
You snipe them from the air with a cloth at every opportunity. You ruthlessly wage war. All fruit flies, ye tremble!!! You bring the vacuum into the picture—oh, such power, such efficiency.
Your housemates laugh at you as you stand wild-eyed and determined with vacuum tube in hand. It’s a bloodbath. It has been a month, and only the other day you read that fruit flies lay 500 eggs at a time.
“This ends now,” you say. It’s a kill-on-sight mandate. No survivors. More vinegar cups. More vacuum. A mostly empty wine bottle serves as an ideal deathtrap. There is no fruit in the house.
Soon, I knew, the last one would fall. I would ensure it. By suction or cloth or watery grave, they would perish. By golly, they would be cast out.
Another week passes. You’re deep cleaning your house. “Hm,” you think, “I haven’t cleaned out the root vegetable storage container for a while, better do that, pretty sure there’s nothing in there, though.”
Oh, dear reader. The swarm. The swarm of fruit flies had found their home in a single forgotten potato, and there, they flourished.
You gag. You rush to put the whole container outside. They flee in all directions. You slam the screen door closed, they cling to the mesh—they beg re-entry. They shall never gain it.
Your home knows peace again. The war is over. All is well.
But take this from my story, dear reader—never bring fruit back from Vegas. You may be inviting 500+ fruit flies into your home.
Be forewarned.
Thank you for reading.
Leave a Reply