Fruit Flies: God's Judgment On A Bad Housekeeper?

An infestation of fruit flies has disrupted my normally serene and pristine home environment. At least it’s only fruit flies, I told myself at first. They almost sound good for you. It’s practically a compliment to have fruit flies. Not cringe-worthy cockroaches. Not ant colonies, marching in formation, hoisting crumbs onto their tiny backs and marching back to their tripartite queen. Fruit flies. How bad could they be?

Well. Let me tell you how bad it can be. It's approaching Egyptian plague levels in the Peevie homestead. If I were Pharaoh, I would totally give up and Let His People Go.

It all started with those dang tomatoes. We had so many that I couldn’t make salsa fast enough; so some of them started to over-ripen. We started noticing two or three tiny fruit flies about three weeks ago. We threw away the just-barely-starting-to-rot tomatoes, but kept the others on the counter, plus the usual bowl of fruit and our usual level of kitchen messitude. That was our first mistake.

What we didn’t realize was that fruit flies are teensy-weensy nymphomaniacs. Eight or nine days after a female lays an egg, there’s a mature fruit fly waiting to copulate and lay more eggs. And here’s the really bad news: according to Wikipedia, females can lay more than 800 eggs in a single day.

So now I find myself waving ribbons of sticky fly-paper through the air, trying to speed up the process of annihilation. We have strips of glutinous, honey-colored fly-death hanging in the kitchen doorway in a “Home Alone Kid Meets Greg Brady’s Beaded Curtains” kind of way.

But it’s not just the kitchen. The nasty little buggers have invaded the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the office. They’re annexing the entire house as a sort of Del Webb lifestyle community for fruit flies. We have bowls of cider vinegar sitting around to attract and trap them--but apparently they think it's an upgrade to lakefront property. They don't fall in and die. They just sit around the edge, playing frisbee and watching hot fruit fly chicks stroll by.

Oh, and thanks a lot to those researchers in Connecticut who mutated a fruit fly gene and nearly doubled their life spans. That’s just what I need. Nine generations of tiny insects enjoying the fruits of my labor.

Did you know that fruit flies are the most studied organism in biological research? Apparently they are genetically very similar to humans. Weird. Maybe I’ll pick up an autoclave and a microscope from Ebay, borrow some of A. Peevie’s test tubes—and voila, I’ve got my own genome research lab.

Last week the local ABC affiliate in Los Angeles reported that officials sprinkled a huge batch of sterile male flies over the area in order to protect the crops from infestation. I wonder if it's too much to ask if they could make a sweep over NW Chicago. I’m getting desperate here.

In which I Claim Victory over the Fruit Flies, and invent a Device of Great Usefulness In Combating Flying Insects

So I think the Age of the Fruit Fly is finally coming to an end in the Peevie domicile.

I googled how to get rid of fruit flies, and tried a couple of tricks I learned from the Internet, like stretching plastic wrap over a bowl of cider vinegar and poking little holes in it, which would theoretically trap the unsuspecting flies once they crawled under the wrap for a dip and a nosh. That method was not particularly successful, as I noted in my earlier fruit fly post.

I picked up fly paper at the hardware store, and hung the strips in the fly-populated corners of my kitchen. For some reason they seemed to prefer the dark and narrow space behind the kitchen door, even though there is no food or dirty dishes there. But every time someone opened or closed the door, a cloud of flies would dust up, and I’d grab one of the fly paper strips and start waving it madly through the air, catching two flies for every forty that simply relocated.

Mr. Peevie did his own research, and purchased a couple of fruit fly traps over the Internet. They are little screw-cap bottles with bait and fly-paper inside. They’ve been OK at catching flies, but more often than not, I see the flies congregating on the outside of the bottle instead of sliding down the chute of death.

As I was fecklessly chasing teensy-weensy airborne acrobats with ribbons of sticky death one day, I thought to myself, “This sure would be a lot easier and more effective if I had something wider than a ribbon to catch the flies with. Something like a sticky fly-swatter.”

And the rest is history. I bought a new fly-swatter, wrapped fly-paper around it, and went on a drosophila rampage this afternoon. I am not even kidding you, this is the best invention for the insect-bedeviled since the fly swatter itself.

As I sit here writing this post, the occasional fruit fly wanders by my face nonchalantly, little suspecting that its tiny life is about to come to a sticky end. I calmly pick up my homemade fruit fly capturing contraption, serenely give a wave, and voila! The fruit fly is history.

Now if I can get a patent for this deal, my future is secure. And, I'm hoping, fruit-fly-free.

It's All About the Kids, Part II

Sometime during our stay in Door County, we lost the Sangria Poltergeist--although we still have the fumes and fruit flies. Maybe my mechanic is not so crazy after all. I'm kind of going to miss the Korean alt hip-hop, though.

On Saturday we took the herd to a campground to swim and to somehow lose six golf balls in the water hazard on the miniature golf course. (The only reason the golf balls matter is that it was my driver's license that was being held hostage until the golf balls were found and returned.)

We set up camp in a picnic table clearing, and while the kids splashed and dunked and slid down pool slides, Mr. D'Onofrio cooked up a storm. Actually, it was more like an entire tornado system.

Earlier that day Mr. D had created a huge batch of homemade potato salad, complete with hard-boiled eggs. We were originally planning on having deviled eggs, but we waited too long to peel the dang things, and the peeled eggs were so pock-marked they looked like ovoid golf balls.

I do not know what Mr. D included in his mayonnaise mixture, but it was so delicious that if they had trading cards for picnic side dishes, the Mr. D Unbelievably Delicious Potato Salad card would be as coveted as the 1909 Honus Wagner.

He laid out a feast of burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and a huge pan of BBQ ribs. Then, after everyone had piled their paper plates to the tipping point, he said, "I guess I'll throw the steaks on now." Oh yes, he did. We all just looked at him like, "Dude, you're insane." Then we looked at each other and shrugged. "OK," we said; and we proceeded to eat ourselves into the greatest meat coma of all time.

After we all regained consciousness, we drove north for the Big Sister Bay Fireworks Extravaganza. We spread our blankets and folding chairs on the lawn overlooking the bay, and waited for dusk to turn into dark. Someone near us had what sounded like a transistor radio tuned to a station playing patriotic numbers.

As the fireworks began, I suddenly missed Mr. Peevie, so I borrowed a cell phone. It was hard to hear, what with the bombs bursting in air and the rockets' red glare and all. We passed the phone around for a few peeps to say hi; and when C. Peevie started talking, I almost cried. "I really, really miss you, Dad," he said. "I wish you were here." He might be almost as tall as me, way smarter, and with twice as much B.O.--but inside, he's still just a little boy who needs his daddy. Aw.

When I saw that A. Peevie had snuggled into the lap of C. Peevie's friend X-Man to watch the light show, I got all misty again. (Anytime somebody is kind and gentle with one of my kids, it just makes me all verklempt. I can't help myself. Sometimes I am just a big crybaby.)

Eventually we made it home to the shack. The adults were exhausted, but the teenagers found a second wind and decided to hang out by the bonfire until the wee hours of the morning. Several had brought guitars, both acoustic and electric. They played music and talked and made s'mores--it was like a scene out of a teenage-angst-but-with-a-happy-ending movie.

Most of these eighth graders have been together since kindergarten. A couple have even left our school for other education options--but they still choose to be a part of this unique and diverse collection of kids from all across the city: black, Asian, white, faithful, faith-free, long-hairs, crew cuts. They are actors, musicians, artists, athletes.

Mrs. D'Onofrio might be a tiny bit insane for putting together this "It's all about the kids" Door County farm weekend--but sometimes insanity is a good thing. What a great finale to what feels like not just the end of the summer, but the end of an era. Next summer, these kids will be getting ready to head off to high schools across the city. Some will keep in touch; some won't.

But I bet when they're 20, or 30, or--heaven help us--40, memories from this farm weekend will still crop up from their subconscious. They'll smile, and one or two of them may even press a button on whatever cell phones have evolved into, and reach out to one of their eighth-grade buddies, and say, "Hey, remember when we went up to Door County that one week with that crazy Mrs. D'Onofrio? Fun times. Wanna get together for lunch sometime?"

Thanks for that, Mr. and Mrs. D.

(The fireworks photo comes from PD Photo.org. The other photos courtesy of J.Ro.)

Happy Blogiversary To Me

Today marks the first anniversary of my virgin blog post.

Since then I have written 140 posts about fruit flies, my garden, books you should read, books you shouldn't bother reading, hilarious movies, confusing movies, really bad housekeeping, my first husband, impassioned parents, memes, language, plucky people, faith challenges, heroes, and glorious food.

My 100th post was about one of my favorite writers, Roger Ebert.

I've written more posts about my above-average kids (18--posts that is, not children) than anything else. Second place goes to life anecdotes.

The post that got the most comments was Why I'm Voting for Barack Obama. Surprise, surprise. That's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at its best.

My most frequent commenter was the self-appointed president of my non-existent fan club, Jeanie, followed closely by HPaul and Boy George.

I think this is my favorite post , but this post written by a local princess is a close second.

To all six of my faithful readers, thank you for your support. Stay tuned for more blogging fun.

And, as always, remember that I am a comment whore. This means that the more comments you leave, the more I love you.

Insect Revenge

Remember last summer when we were having the intractable problem with the fruit flies?

Well. The insect world has apparently decided that it is time to exact revenge for the senseless slaughter of those tiny innocents. They sent a couple of battalions of carpenter ants to invade my kitchen, and I just about got eaten alive.

I walked out to the kitchen to see about getting some birthday lunch. I was considering a plate of leftover burgers and brats, when suddenly an ant as big as a hamster sauntered across the kitchen counter right in front of me. I am not normally one to take the Lord's name in vain, but I screamed, "OHMYGOD!" and knocked it on the floor and stomped on it with my faux-croc.

Then I saw two more big-ass ants advancing on me across the Pergo. "OHMYGOD!" I screeched again, and stomped them dead. As soon as I stomped, I saw more steroidal ants headed my way from the screen door, and as my gaze went up from the floor to the top of the screen door, the view started to look like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Thousands of ants swarmed around the inside of the screen.

"OMIGOD, OMIGOD, OMIGOD!!" I said, calling on the Lord to take away this plague. I slammed the back door shut, trapping the ants between the screen door and the main door, that possibly was not strong enough to hold back the pullulating legion. I raced to the front door, ran around the house to the deck, and pulled open the screen door. There were so many winged creatures that lifted off the screen that the sky turned black for a minute. I felt like Pharoah arguing with Moses about Letting His People Go.

I ducked away from the swarm and ran back around the house. Back in the kitchen, I started to notice that ants had broken away from the herd before I slammed the door. They were crawling across the walls and floor, and I attacked them with the fly swatter. Almost all of them had wings, but none were flying, and they made slow-moving targets.

Eventually I had a pile of about 20 ant carcasses; and eventually, my heart stopped pounding at NASCAR speed.

Now comes the hard part: finding out where the nest is, destroying it, and fixing the problem that attracted the ants in the first place.

I love being a homeowner.

(Top photo credit: PCS Gulf Islands. If you're reading this from the southern Gulf islands, and you have a pest problem, give them a call.)