Beech Tree News Network

“There’s a dead cow under our house,” my husband, Garey informs me as I find my way into the kitchen for my morning cup of coffee.
“Oh really,” I say, as I start the caffeine brew.
“There’s gotta be,” he says, “I’ve been killing flies for twenty minutes.”
I understand.  I’ve been killing flies all week.  I thought it might be some of the rotting tomatoes or squash I found at the bottom of the bucket while I was canning and freezing, so I got rid of those things at the beginning of the week. That didn’t seem to faze them, so I began to search through closets and under the sink for dead mice.  Didn’t find any of those either, although I did find a pair of shoes I’ve been missing for six months, so the search wasn’t totally fruitless.
    As I sip my coffee and catch the morning news in the den, I hear Garey rummaging through the utility room closet.  He is reading labels on cans of pesticides, “Flea, Ant and Roach, Wasp and Hornet.”  Wait for it…”Cheryl, don’t we have anything for flies?” he yells.
    “I would think if the stuff will kill fleas, ants, roaches, wasps and hornets, it will kill a fly,” I say,   adding “Honey” at the last minute, so I don’t sound too snarky.
    I hear Garey choose a can and return to the kitchen.  He stops at the edge of the dining room.  I hear a hiss from the can then a splat against the dining room window.  “He must have chosen wasp and hornet,” I say to myself.
     A few minutes later, I return to the kitchen with my empty cup.  My dining room window has taken on an eerie frosted white tint.  Glittery green fly parts have stuck to the frost and give it a macabre feel.  “Too bad, Halloween is a couple of months away,” I say.  Garey is too focused on killing the little pests to get the joke or maybe, he’s just ignoring me.
    I haven’t stood idly by while the flies take over.  I have been pro-active in this battle.  Around mid-week, I hung one of those unsightly fly strips from the ceiling.  I used to see them full of flies at a nearby country store when I was a kid.  They must have changed the formula, because only a couple of flies showed any interest—the first one accidentally flew into it, and the second one came to his funeral.  I bought a new flyswatter.  I got the last one when Jimmy Carter was president.  I justified having a second one, because I was tired of making the trek from the living room to the kitchen when I was trying to watch TV but becoming distracted by the habitual buzzing. 
    One of the strange things I’ve noticed about flies is their response to commands.  Much like telling Rover to “Sit,” it is possible to tell a fly to “Land,” and it will.  Of course, it won’t land on the trash can lid or on a flat space like the kitchen counter.  More times than not, the fly will land on the rim of your glass of sweet tea or the plate of freshly sliced tomatoes, or their favorite spot, the tip of your fly swatter.
    By the weekend, I’ve taken the “all God’s creatures” attitude—I tell myself it is the harmonious thing to do, and besides, I won’t have to admit defeat.  I learned at the insectarium in New Orleans that fly eggs turn into maggots that eat rotten things.  Insects that eat rotten things keep us from becoming knee-deep in rotting things ourselves.  It is little comfort.
    I realize if I don’t get a handle on things pretty quickly, Garey is going to take drastic measures.  He’s done it before.  He’ll get out those fogger things and bomb the house with them.  You know the ones, you can smell them on your clothes for weeks.  I’m so glad I didn’t tell him about how my niece, Melanie,  had a big tent put over her house to get rid of bed bugs—she travels the world and they hitched a ride in her luggage from France.  We have enough of a circus going on here without the tent.
No, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and do what I should have done in the first place—drag the dead cow out from under the house.