I walked in the apartment to find my roomie microwaving his dinner amidst a swarm of flies."Hey! Ew... there sure are a lot of flies in here."
"Yeah, I know. It's weird... Today's my birthday. I'm 25."
"Oh. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I wonder where they all came from? Are you going to do anything fun to celebrate?"
"Well, I have to work, so no. Not really. Yeah, there's a lot."
"Hmm. Okay, well I should get packin'. Happy Birthday, again, and I hope it's the best."
Grunt.
And then I went in my room and sat on my bed and looked at everything that I needed to pack. Shit! I thought and flopped down on my bed. Then I rolled around and whined for a little bit, "I don't want to pack! I don't want to pack! Do I even know how to pack? I don't think I remember! Where do I even start?!" Then I flung myself up and walked circles around my room.
Oh! I'm feeling anxious just typing about it!
Then I called a friend who is in town for a job assignment to make plans to meet for lunch. Then I sent a text message to my friend who just moved out to Virginia with her boyfriend. Then I called my mom (who has strep throat!! oh no! who gets strep throat in summertime?! apparently all of NW Missouri b/c the doctor's office was out of the tests, but the doctor looked at my mom and said, "Hmm. Yes, it sure looks like strep in there, and you do look like crap." That's what she told me!), about half-way through I started packing - momma's always got the motivation! Oh, and I told her about the George Clinton show, and she said, "Who's George Clinton?" or "What's that?" And I said, "He's the king of funk, Mom!" and I sang a little bit of "Atomic Dog" to her because that's a really well know one and a little bit of the "Funkenstein" one, and she said that was nice but she'd never heard of him before. And then I said, "You're such a square, Mom." And she laughed and said, "I know." (She should know who he is because she's 57, but she does forget things a lot... like picking me up from soccer practice when I was a kid). Then I hung up with her and talked to my friend who's moving - yeah, actually in the process of driving state through state, so it was fun to do a quick catch-up and she promised to call once she got settled - HOW EXCITING! So many things happening in everyone's lives!
**Side note. This friend who's moving, KR, has an inside joke with me about talking to people on the phone when you're in the car 
with someone else. It's just rude most of the time. Y'know to have an actual conversation - unless the passenger is asleep - rather than just getting quick directions or something (and also, it's just not safe to talk and drive, y'know!). Once we were going to the grocery store and she was talking to her mom on the phone and I was playing with the radio and looking out the window, bored, needing entertainment. She said, "Hey Mom, can I call you back? I'm in the car with my friend right now." And we decided that this could be used as an excuse any time someone calls and you don't want to talk to them anymore. "Hey Stan. Can I call you back? I'm in the car with a friend right now. Yeah, I'm being rude and neglectful to them. I have to let you go."/"Oh, but I thought you just said you were walking to the mailbox."/"Oh no, no. You must've heard me wrong. I'm driving." And any other situations as well, use your imagination like Gladys Knight and her Pips.**
Alright, so I'm packing and watching Shark Week and I run out of boxes from work so I have to go to the grocery store to see if I can get more. I can, but I have to come back in 40 minutes. So I go home and make dinner, eat dinner and then when I am walking past the extra bedroom I remember how roomie said something about how his brother wasn't staying with us anymore. Hmm. That's weird. I wonder why the door was closed last night then, and right now... oh wait! Roomie moved his bed out on Sunday, so where's he sleeping? Timidly I open the door to find lights and TV on, and my sheets covered in filth - does he roll around in dirt before he gets into bed?! Oh! And there was a box of pizza on the floor with crusts left over from the night before, and a half-eaten half-gallon of ice cream melting with a spoon sunk in, AND an uncapped carton of mile... HMMMM? I wonder why there are flies. Yeah, roomie. I wonder!!!, I could've screamed. Instead I just wanted to cry and I wondered what kind of home life he had as a child. Were there maids so that he never learned to clean? Would his mother take care of everything and tell him not to worry? Probably because he's 25 and still receiving rent checks from home. Sheesh. Okay, I'll stop judging... out loud. So I begrudgingly cleaned up and went back to watching swimming sharks with tears in my eyes. Then I went back to the store, schlepped my boxes home, and commenced playing my guitar.
When I was playing my guitar I noticed that the flies migrated into my room and are a-swarming and zooming around. One fly I can handle, 5-6 I cannot. It's just disgusting. They're looking at you with all their bazillions of eyes, pooping or throwing up or doing whatever they do all over every surface they land on. I spy one sitting on the shoulder of a shirt in my closet. He's just sitting there. I lose it when I see a friend join him. I grab my flip-flop and start swinging. When I'm swinging I stir up a storm and there are anywhere from 4-78 swooping through the air. I freak out and swing more furiously. I'm surprised I didn't break a light bulb. This swinging insanity doesn't seem to do anything but cause them to fly faster and kamikaze towards my face. After a few minutes of shrieks and continuous cursing I open the door to my back deck, frantically fanning it in hopes that they will return out to the urban wilderness. NOPE! They stay in my room and the hallway.
Alright, fuckers. I gave you one last chance and now I'm going to kill you all. I close the door, calmly and go into the cabinet under my sink. I reached for the bleach, but I figured this would be a bad idea to spray all over my room, so I got the "Clean Shower" instead. It didn't seem to work as they kept flying into it, probably saying, "Yes! She's giving us a shower! How nice! I feel like we're at the Ritz Carlton!" So I grabbed a bottle of that fabric freshener Renuzit instead. Yes! They do not like this, and it's good for the fabrics!! I'm spraying and spraying, laughing maniacally as they fly slower and slower becoming more and more discombobulated (I think this is my favorite word - ever) and eventually land on the closest wall/surface to gasp for breath. This is where I get them with a shoe, rolled up magazine, tissue, whatever - yeah, gross, but once with my palm (I cringed and scrubbed my hand in scalding water immediately after, something like an OCD person might do). I felt a huge sense of accomplishment when my room was silent and I've counted 5 killed in my quarters and one in the kitchen. I do the "I wash my hands of this" motion and smile thinking about how much I've always hated flies.
**When I was a kid, my brother and I would spend summers in New Jersey with our dad. For the majority of the summer we went to day camp, when the anywhere from 4-8 week camping session was over my dad would take 1-2 weeks for vacation and we would rent a beach house at the Jersey Shore on LBI (oh! it was the best!) and turn into beach bums. It was the best! The houses were straight from the 70s and usually (I don't want to say infested) crawling with ants (they love picnics and the beach weather!), but right on the beach, so you can't beat that! In the mornings, after breakfast, my brother and I would race down to the beach, our step mother screaming behind us not to get in the water. So we'd play in the sand - where the horseflies were. After taking their crap for 5 minutes we started fighting back. When they landed on us we wouldn't shoo them away or smash them but rather catch them, not to be set free, mind you. Once either of us had a squirming fly in our cupped hands the other would dig a hole and maybe fill it with water. Then the kid holding the fly would, almost like a surgeon, remove the wings with a delicate precision and place the limbless body in the hole. We'd rest on our elbows and watch it struggle for a little while and then get bored, filling it with sand and moving on with our castle making business until we were bothered again. As the day wore on the flies became fewer in numbers. Maybe this was because we were killing them all, or maybe this was because the flies knew what was happening and knew to stay away from the crazy kids in the neon swimsuits.**
The flies were gone. My packing quota met for the night. I felt a wave of satisfaction roll over me as I slipped into my bed and listened to the rolling thunderstorm outside lull me to sleep. Tomorrow (today) I will worry about sheets to clean, roomies to punch, dishes to wash and pack, and other things. In time all things will be resolved. Sleep, sleep, sleep little baby.
