The insect life of this part of the country is fairly notorious for its variety and habit of year-round presence, considering its semi-tropical position in the northern hemisphere. About a month ago I came to appreciate this fact when I came under siege by FLIES. Large red-eyed beasts that seemingly came out of nowhere.

At first, when I had just one, almost a quarter of an inch long, buzzing aimlessly about I was amused, and I would engage it in staring contests (I always won), and I managed to catch and release it outside at least three times before it occurred to me to wonder where they were coming from.

Then they began to attack me, like Gnatzi Stukas, one even striking me in the eye as I sat reading in the living room. I then began a different response - KILL - which seemed to work at first until they began to appear again, almost like characters in a video game that regenerate when killed. This became more serious when they began to appear in pairs, and then in threes - towards the end it was not too unusual to see two crouched on a lampshade while a third made passes at my face.

Late last year I had gone to Home Despot to purchase a quantity of bug bombs, not due to flies but on account of the cockroach infestation, but had never quite gotten around to using them - until now. Setting the bombs up around the house and made myself scarce for the two hours according to the directions on the cans.

Returning home, I went about opening windows and doors, in the course of which I came to understand what my great-granduncle underwent during WWI when he got caught in a German gas attack. That was NASTY stuff. To shorten this a bit, the stuff worked to a considerable extent (I still have cockroaches, but not so much as before); oddly enough, later that day I found two flies on the inside of the back screen door, which I let out, while a third made a final strafing run past my face a little later. And none since then, knock wood (thumps self on head).