Thursday, September 3, 2009

How to Keep a Single Fly From Bothering a Sleeping Baby

I don't mind flies in my kitchen, or in my living room, but one place I WILL NOT tolerate flies is in my bedroom. It is impossible to sleep when there is all that buzzing around your ear and just when you drift off into never never land, the little dickens decides to land on your lip. At least that's what always happens to me....every time.

Something almost as bad is when you put down the 3 three and under for their naps and there is a stray fly flitting around the bedroom. They are fast asleep by now, but you notice that Twin B keeps squirming and grunting. You walk over to see what the problem could be, then you see it. The pesky pest has encountered the tiny smear of tomato sauce you accidentally left behind Twin B's ear after his spaghetti lunch, and now he is having lunch.

What to do? You can't grab the flyswatter and smack it because...

1. The fly won't land anywhere except on Twin B.
2. If it were to land anywhere other than on Twin B, the swatting sound of the flyswatter on the fly could wake up any number of the 3 three and under. That would be completely unacceptable.

Here's what I did. I stood there, thinking what to do. I wondered if I could do an Obama-style fly catch, but I have never been able to do that, in all of my years, even though my father spent hours trying to teach me how, and besides, the thought of that is just really gross. I tried to shoo it away, but it wouldn't forget about the tomato sauce and kept returning to the exact same location. I had to do something, because if Twin B woke up, well, I can't tell you what would have happened if Twin B had woken up, but you know. You've been there when your baby's nap gets ruined and you feel like there is nothing to live for for the rest of the day. Then it hit me. I deftly walked over to my bathroom counter and picked up this...


This is what I use daily in an attempt to get my hair to behave. It usually doesn't help but for about an hour, then my hair goes back to it's unruly ways, but I have to try. I took this can of hairspray and when I got the chance, I sprayed the fly as it was flying in the air high over Twin B's head. It was flying so quickly, that I couldn't keep track of it's subsequent location, but from that moment on....I never saw or heard the fly again.

Here's what I think happened. That hair spray comes out in liquid form, of course, but when it hits the air, it hardens like a rock in about 7 seconds. I think that fly was slowly immobilized, then had no choice but to dive bomb onto my slate floor. I know, not a very vegan way of thinking, but like I said, I do have my priorities. That fly was going to go one way or another, and maybe this way he had a chance to limp and get help from a fellow fly. Or maybe not. All I know is that the 3-year-old, Twin A and Twin B slept peacefully for two more hours and I blogged. Happy ending....um, for the humans.


P.S. I tried this trick one other time and I was equally successful at ridding the sweet children of the virulent pest. It really, really works.

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7 comments:

alessandra said...

Ingenious and hilarious, as usual anyway...I'm glad you post everyday, I wait for it . ;D

Bethany Cox said...

Not a very vegan way of thinking; good thing you're not vegan anymore!

Amanda B. said...

So funny and so useful, all at the same time!!! :)

alessandra said...

Thank you for commenting on my blog....besides I find that the button "I'm so crafty I make people" is so funny and suits you so much ;)

Mom2my10 @ 11th Heaven said...

I know, Alessandra! When I saw that button, I HAD to add it to my sidebar!

Tyler said...

How funny!! Not to mention twin B possibly had a cool doo for the rest of the day ;) Glad everyone ended up resting for ya!

Cheryl B. said...

Actually, the way to guarentee that you'll be able to kill ANY sort of flying insect, is to spray them with some sort of airosol spray. And make sure you give them a liberal coating!! The spray coats their wings thus making them heavy and unusable. While the coating does not kill them, nor does it often last very long, it DOES give you time to go into 'killer mode'! While in 'killer mode' you can use what ever you have available to effectivly do the job, be it a shoe, or a wad of news paper, or ... just grab and act fast!!
I learned all of this y-e-a-r-s ago when all four of ours were very young and a silver dollar sized yellow jacket decided to invade our kitchen. He was most unwelcome, but that did not seem to be fazing him :-/ At that point in time, Brian was driving a route for N.A.P.A.. I tried calling, but of course could not catch him (this was back before cell phones, etc.). The guy that had answered the phone inquired how big of an emergancy it was, he could tell by the tone of my voice that something was definetly wrong!!! I explained, and since they knew Brian later would be heading straight from there to cater ... he asked around. The answer came that I was to spray it with some WD-40 {I was talking to mechanic type guys ;-p}. When I said that I had no clue where ours might be, the answer came back that all it really needed to be was a good heavy dosing of a airosol type spray. They then explained how it works.
Over the years, numerous flying critters have met their end via first being sprayed with pan coating spray, or deoderant, or even antidisinfectant spray ;-p. The couple of times that we have had bats in the house, I have wondered if I could win by spraying two cans at the same time .....
Oh, and your right. Either flys or mosquitos in a bedroom seem to out do themselves in qualifying as "pesty"!!!! You cover both ears with your pillow and they go for your eye lids, or .... and if you go under the blankets, even when you do it super fast, they go with you ....