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My home office was bugged during the heat of a sultry night!
The long, hot summer isn’t over until the crickets stop chirping when temperatures drop below 55 degrees Fahrenheit. As the tilt of the earth’s axis orbits around the sun, I can’t wait for relief from the oppressive heat and humidity that has plagued New Englanders since July.
Which brings me to the gnatsy business of fruit flies or gnats, those pesky little insects which seem to multiply by the thousands in summer and show up like the uninvited house guests they are. To my horror and consternation, my home office was recently bugged during the heat of one such sultry night! My cool surroundings tempered by air conditioning, closed windows, and drawn blinds provided a false lull of security:
An Indie author typing in earnest to further along the draft for chapter 11 in my WIP, I espied a gnat inside the globe of my desk lamp. The little bugger dodged several of my clumsy attempts to squish him. Undaunted, I fortified myself with a wet sheet of paper towel and snuffed him out.
Resuming my work, I soon detected a gnat on the computer screen. I left the scene to procure a tissue, and strategically crumpled it to smother bugger no. 2. At a loss for typewritten words to land on the page, I noticed several pairs of wings glistening on the half-rug upon which my desktop computer rests. I dashed out of the room to grab more ammunition—wads of wet paper towel. A mercenary taking no prisoners, I stomped out the wave of intruders.
Baffled, I investigated the only likely source of the winged invasion. Raising the blinds on the double-hung window, I discovered smarmy swarms of gnats wanting in from the other side of the glass. Several of those purpose-driven pests had infiltrated the window sill, a vaulting point to my desk. I smashed every last one of them.
An aha moment predisposed me to switch off the lamp, and I vacuumed the spoils of war from the carpet. As a precautionary measure, I fortified one of the lower window sashes with clear duct tape.
Wiser for gnatsy business, I dutifully close the office windows and draw the blinds before sundown. I work without the benefit of lamplight to deter the gnatsy regime from infiltrating my abode during its night raids. Diligence offers its own reward: Come morning inspection round, there’s nary a gnat to be found on the window sills.
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We get that hot humid weather for about 10 months of the year. I like it. Most of our fruit flies arrive by bunches of bananas. So far no tarantulas have, thank goodness. I have a tendency not to drink all of my dinner glass of wine… But to stretch it out into the evening with a small snack. I know, most of you alcoholics out there just have to gulp it down… ;-) Anyway, like some kind of ritual, one fruit fly every evening decides to commit suicide by wine. So as I drink the last of my wine with a coffee stirrer straw I have to be very careful not to suck up that still wiggly little gnatsy thing in the bottom of my wine glass. The little buggers are much more social in Egypt. I recall a full quarter-inch of the dead little guys at the bottom of my bottle of wine there. Yummy!
Ron