Friday, November 7, 2014

horrible introspection

I've had fruit flies in my kitchen since the summer, on and off- they never quite went away. I finally found out where the last batch hatched from - er, I did not know that oat bran would go off in the pack. Or that fruit flies would breed in it. *vomit* I thought it would just sit there, dryly, honest.

I tend to have a violent mini-flamethrower fantasy reaction to the flies, maybe a baker's blow torch? As the last one or few kept flying towards me, that was all I could think about. Flaming them so they dropped, blackened and frazzled out of the air, perhaps after emitting a cartoon micro-scream. Isn't that a terrible image? Yet grimly satisfying.

I bought a red candle-lighter the other day, with a long, em... what would you call it? One of these type doodits but with a big round grey clicky button in the middle.


I can't tell you how much I wanted to grab it and try and incinerate the tiny fly in mid-flight. I'm usually relatively Buddhist about killing things, even detested spiders and... well, I feel ok about killing mosquitoes, in truth. But I open the window for house flies and hope they'll fuck off on their own steam. I hate the thought of torture, or causing anything pain.

So I was a bit horrified to find myself mildly obsessed with flaming the fly to death. And then I thought, with even more horrror, oh god, is this how psycopaths feel? This blood lust, this need to kill against all their conditioning and convictions? Imagine if I was desperate to set a human being on fire instead of teeny fly?

Ok, I've been watching too much Criminal Minds, I know. Still though. Perspective. 

4 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Really? If I were a fruit fly I think I would rather go down in flames than to drown in vinegar. Which, by the way, is supposed to trap them where yes, they drown. Apple Cider vinegar.

Jo said...

Now my comments aren't publishing on my OWN blog. Sigh.

Mary, I feel guilty about the vinegar traps. But I hate the fuckers so much I still do it. A drop of washing up liquid (dish soap??) makes them sink instantly...

ellen abbott said...

I'm the same way. I trap things to release them outside. Except spiders but only because they reproduce at an astounding rate so the spiders are on their own not that I have anything against them. So imagine my horror when I found myself having to dispatch a rat in the wall in a rather gruesome manner. I cannot tolerate rats in my walls. Those fuckers have got to go.

Jo said...

I've little issue with rats out in nature, but ... not in the walls. Oh no. I had a horribly gruesome experience with a tiny mouse that got caught in a trap the wrong way once. That was totally traumatising.