War of the Flies

Last night, we had an absolute catastrophe at Boyer's Vineyard, in which we were surrounded by flies. We could not walk anywhere without having to swat at least one away. They crowded the windows, flew all around the lights, and constantly landed on our food. The moment we chased one away, another two came to replace it, like chopping off the Hydra's head. There were probably a total of 75-100 flies in our living room/kitchen and Hannah's bedroom. In her room, they were quite relaxed while chilling on the pull chains to her lights. They were neatly lined up all in a row, occasionally launching off to make a lap around her ceiling light before returning to their spot in line. They looked like they were lining up to receive unemployment benefits.

The heat was also unbearable. The apartment was absolutely stifling and after dinner, we all stepped outside to cool off. Meanwhile, the flies began terrorizing the bread that we left on the counter as well as the ceiling lights in all the rooms. When we returned inside, the flies were everywhere. There was nothing in sight that didn't have a fly crawling over it. Earlier in the day, Elysia had killed a bunch of flies on on the windows by spraying them with Windex. Now, she pulled the Windex back out in preparation to kill more flies. Hannah came up with the brilliant idea of using a hand vacuum to vacuum up all the flies, dead or alive. Beka used the Internet to search for fly traps, while Harriett called her mom for best proven methods. This was just the beginning of our war with the flies.

Within ten minutes, we had four fly traps set up on our counter, one of honey, one of cider vinegar and dish soap, one of ice, hot sauce and bread, and one of wine and dish soap. These ultimately proved to be fairly ineffective, but it did make us feel a little bit better about our chances. Using the vacuum, Hannah sucked up flies that Elysia had killed earlier along the walls and windows before moving onto the infestation in her own room. Balancing precariously on the edge of her bed, she alternated between vacuuming the flies on her pull chains and ducking out of the way of swooping flies who had scuttled out of of the way of the deadly vacuum. Soon, the vacuum was filled with flies, still hopelessly trying to escape their trap.

It was then that Hannah decided that she couldn't suck up any more flies. The flies in the vacuum were still alive and massively creeping her out. So she emptied the vacuum outside. It was a good thing that the screen door was shut or all the flies would just have flown back into the apartment. I quickly sprayed the flies on the screen with an ammonia formula Windex to make sure they were taken down before slipping the Windex out to Hannah, who went crazy with the flies on the glass part of the door. Not a single one was left to fly back in after the assault.

As soon as Hannah came back inside, the war truly began. We noticed the flies were congregating around the lights and avoiding our fly traps. It was like they knew the traps meant death and that their time was coming and they were secretly planning an assault on us. I hopped on a chair and sprayed the lights until they dripped with ammonia and the flies were dropping out of the sky. They fell onto the floor, the counters, the sink. The vacuum was put into use to suck up all the casualties of the War of the Flies. The method of spraying the flies with Windex proved to work fairly well, although I have to say that we definitely went a little bit overboard with it.

It was when our good friend and comrade Luke arrived that the flies really fled for their lives. Luke hopped around our kitchen like a grasshopper, swatting the flies from the ceiling to the floor with a rolled up UChicago magazine. It's a good thing he's so tall or this would not have worked out so well. Inspired, Beka rolled up a newspaper and joined in the fun, although she shrieked consistently about fly guts. Elysia took up the Windex and started spraying flies on the other lights until they dripped with the liquid. Soon, our living room was down to only a few flies. We then continued onto Hannah's room, where the flies were quickly decimated as well.

Thus, the War of the Flies was declared over and a victorious game of Pictionary ensued. Although the fly traps were for the most part unsuccessful, they did manage to lure a few flies over night and through today, so I suppose they can't be deemed entirely useless.