A Matter of Perspective

Don’t tell me that house flies don’t understand us when we threaten them. You won’t be able to convince me otherwise.

My dislike of flies goes way back to my childhood. We lived on a farm, and if you’ve ever lived on or visited a farm, you know that flies love them.

I am quite certain that God gave cows tails just for the purpose of swishing flies away! Unfortunately, the cows also use them to swish people away, too. My mom knew the importance of the tail to the cow, so she and my dad wouldn’t dock them. However, they did tie them to the stall post when they milked to avoid getting a face full of nasty cow tail.

Anyway, I digress. I have hated flies ever since I knew what those devilish things were! They irritate, they pester, they fly in your face, nose, mouth, hair—anyplace they feel like landing or buzzing.

I used to go on missions with a flyswatter to claim the lives of as many flies as I could. I even went outside and smashed the little flying devils.

But one thing I almost always noticed is that if I have a flyswatter in my hand, they stop dive-bombing me. Now, how do they know about the flyswatter? It isn’t like the flyswatter is any more menacing than a cow’s tail. And yet, when I wield the flyswatter, the flies scatter.

I have verbally threatened flies, but that just seems to make them irritate me more—kind of like a “I dare you” gesture.

I have set the flyswatter down, only to have that one pesky fly come back and, to spite me, land on the flyswatter.

Back to verbal threats.

I never truly feel sorry for killing a fly, even though I know they serve an important role in ecology, like getting rid of poo and other waste materials.

When I do manage to connect the flyswatter to a fly, I remind it that it would still be alive had it left me alone.

Flies drive me nuts—as is probably apparent after you’ve read this!