I Would Never Hurt A Fly… On Purpose


 

WARNING: what you are about to read is undoubtedly going to be the most upsetting and disturbing story of insecticide (insect MURDER!) that you will EVER hear in all of your live-long-life. This story contains graphic details of toilets, MURDER!, and butts. Mom, don’t even read this one. I’m serious. Just mooove along. The rest of you, BE WARNED! Because this story is All Too True, and It Happened To Me! Reader discretion advised.

 

For the last long while, there’s been a small fly buzzing around our bathroom. Small fly. Sweet fly. Let me be clear: I never made an attempt to swat this fly! It felt almost like a pet!! A pet that exclusively seemed to live in our bathroom. Any bathroom visit meant a visit with the apartment’s pet fly.

 

Until the other day, when I padded barefoot to the bathroom to use the facility. At some point during my bathroom visit, I realized I hadn’t seen the fly in a while.

 

I rose to wash my hands in the sink, and saw why.

 

There, on the floor, SMUSHED!, was the fly!

 

Fearing the worst, I lifted my foot to examine the bottom of my sole and my worst fears brought another recent tragedy flashing into my brain…

 

 

A few weeks before this, there was a gnat living in the bathroom. Yah I know it sounds like my apartment is just TEEMING with bugs but hey! It’s NYC in the summertime, every possible window in my corner loft has been open since May, and the odd insect is bound to make their way through a screen once in a while!

I regarded the gnat as a friendly subletter, much like the fly described above. The Gnat lived in the bathroom and didn’t bother anybody. The Gnat really deserved better than to get squished to death… by my butt.

 

Yes.

 

My butt.

 

The Gnat was living, I presume, a full and happy life in our bathroom until one fateful bowel movement. When I rose from my seat, I was horrified to see what I’d left behind.

 

No, not that.

 

The GNAT!

 

Squashed to death on the seat. suffocated by my upper thighs while I, blithely pooping, didn’t even notice. Talk about death without dignity! I felt like such an ass. All puns intended. What have I done with all that junk –– all that junk inside my trunk? Committed a murder.

 

I never meant to kill either of these bugs. But what was I to do? I had to get rid of the bodies… down the toilet, I assumed, was the most merciful. A true Goldfish’s Viking Funeral.

 

Will I suffer karmic retribution for my crimes? Probably. Do I deserve to get sat on by something much larger than me? I guess so. I can only hope, if I’m haunted by the tiny ghosts of the bugs I’ve unintentionally slaughtered with my large, awkward body, that they might someday understand the concept of “intent.” At least they have each other.

 

(in case you were unclear, that’s the final scene from the Jeff Goldblum/Geena Davis classic film The Fly)


2 responses to “I Would Never Hurt A Fly… On Purpose”

  1. First of all, love The Fly pic. I first saw morphed up-mashed up Jeff Goldblum as an insect when I was a young lass and have liked him ever since. Secondly, I enjoyed this story for some reason and felt the need to tell a bit of mine. We don’t get a lot of flies in our house but as for gnats… lord o’ mercy. We bring in a lot of fruits and veggies from our garden, and the gnats are terrible. Seriously, if you are eating something, you have to basically move around so they don’t swarm you if you even stay still for just a moment. So you have no idea how many gnats I have eaten. Not just from them landing on my food but really from them just flying into my mouth. You get one end of the body and I get the other.

    • That’s got to be a little bit of protein then! I read somewhere as a child that humans swallow spiders when they sleep, an average of 8 spiders in a lifetime (I think). At the time, this terrified me, and apologies if it terrifies you as well, but I’ve made a kind of peace with it in my adult years.

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