Trina Machacek
Just like so many of my friends in farming and ranching I have birthed a few baby animals in my time. It usually starts with kittens, then dogs and moves up to any farm animal that will become a momma. Cow, pig, lamb.
Actually, unless there is a problem, sometimes the farmer’s wife is there to cool, calm and catch. HAHA, I have not helped with a horse. That I have not done. So why in the name of the miracle of birth do I have a squeamish chill that runs up my arm from my hand when I have to pick up a dead fly off the floor?! Shiver, shiver.
In the fall the flies start to get what I call “sticky.” They are everywhere. Looking for a nice place to winter I suppose. But not in my house. I spray the outside of my home in fall to kill the sticky little buggers. I have no fly merci.
Several find their way inside just to die doing a kamikaze last flight to the ground. Splat. A tiny splat yes, but a splat. Then it is my job to pick them up and dispose of the numerous black specs of fly corpses.
I am a grown woman. I weigh more than what I would expect would be maybe a million flies. I have two good hands, 10 working fingers, I can bend all the way over and touch the ground. But! Yes, a dead fly covered “but.”
When I reach down to pick up a dead fly, just as my fingers brush the top of a dead wing? I pull back and go “ICK!” I have seen dead things. I have smelled dead things. I have seen things go from alive to dead. I have buried dead things.
I dug the hole and buried my husband’s ashes in my yard for goodness sakes. I am not afraid of dead things. But to actually pick up a crunchy dead fly. By a cockeyed wing. Or have it fall apart as I bring my fingers together to take it to the trash.
I don’t know how to spell the sound I make when I go UUUUGGGGUUUUGGG and shiver. There are fly swatters in many strategic locations around my house. For the hardy little ones that seem to think the fly spray is just so much water and insecticide.
By October I would bet many of my friends are dead eyes with a swatter. Getting one with a swatter leaves you to be able to scoop it up. But that too will require some hand-eye magic. Splat on a counter a push into the sink.
A quick whirr of the garbage disposal. Just in case the little dickens were only stunned. Not close to the sink? Then there is the act to scoot the dead bug to the edge with something that is already on the counter, get it on the mesh of the swatter and off to the trash.
Then, WIPE THE COUNTER. Please. The death of a fly by swatter on the floor will bring about a scoop onto the swatter. A quick shovel like movement and ta-da. Or you might need the aid of a foot. Not a bare foot.
The foot needs a sock or shoe least I get fly guts on my toe! Like many people I have boxes of tissues scattered around the house. During fly pick-up season you will be hard pressed to find one tissue poking up without a little corner of it torn off.
Even the toilet paper may have what looks like a chewed off corner. I know. I know. It’s a mind thing. But those little white pieces of paper serve as a comfortable safety barrier between my skin and whatever teeny tiny live, or dead, livestock may be lurking on a dead fly.
Then there are spiders. Spray also gets any wayward spider that may crawl in through the vents at the bottom of the windows when the windows are open. Oh. You didn’t know that’s how they get in?
I mean it’s not like they knock, and the flies open the door! I know that because the flies of course are already dead. Makes me wonder though. Besides the doors open and closing. How do flies get in my house?
I’m flying in a strange direction. Back to squeamish things. I just picked up a dead spider out of my bathtub. With toilet paper tag in hand, I poked first to see if it was really dead, or just playing dead.
As I reached for the corpse, I thought of this. I read recently where someone asked, “What if spiders are giggling as they run away from me?” There was no giggle left in that spider.
Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. Email itybytrina@yahoo.com.