Et Cetera

Time flies, eh?  I'm sitting here eating my oh-so-healthy breakfast (Honey Smacks are healthy, right?  Work with me.) and pondering the length of time I go between posts these days.  I've pretty much determined that if I fell over dead, y'all would know about a month after the fact.  Maybe.  Might take two to figure it out.  I won't say I'm about to get way better about it, 'cause we all know that would make me a big, fat LIAR, but... I at least THINK about it from time to time.

Honey Smacks are GOOD, dammit...

So a few weeks ago I'm sitting on the deck with my friend Mark.  Sunny, lazy day... just chillin' like villains.  (Ha.  I love that.  'Cause really?  How chilled out IS your average villain?  Aren't they usually busy planning evil and running from men in tights with overcompensation issues?)  The flies were out in force that day (and we all know how I feel about bugs of any sort... I was thrilled.  Seriously.) and I kept waving them off of me, trying to pretend they weren't making me want to go postal.  Mark, on the other hand, is calmly sitting there watching them land on his shorts before easing his hand up behind them and...

FLICK.

Off shoots the fly.  It doesn't kill the aforementioned fly, but surely confuses the fuck-all out of it for a few minutes.  They land some distance away and sit there, as Mark puts it, 'thinking they're Chinese' until they get their bearings and take off on their fly business.  One would hope that would include warning their little fly friends, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

I'm sitting there watching this in amazement.  I've never seen anyone be able to get their hand close enough to flick a fly, as generally you get within six inches of a fly and it suddenly remembers a meeting it has to attend.  Immediately.  But Mark is, with almost creepy success, continually managing to send these flies on short trips.  With concussions.

I mention to him the fact that this is a new thing for me to see.  That I do, in fact, envy his motor skills.  (I tried to flick a fly off of me.  Okay, five.  I had the success rate of Ralph Nader.)  He looks at me, smiles (while lining up his next target/victim), and says...

"Country flies are stupid."

(...)

I almost fell out of the chair laughing.  I'm not kidding.  I laughed so hard I could. not. BREATHE.  'Country flies are stupid'?  Seriously!  Okay, maybe you had to be there, but... DYING! 

He goes on to explain how you'd never be able to 'pull that shit on CITY fly'.  He says city flies have been swatted at and flicked too often to fall for that.  I look at him from the chair I'm barely hanging onto (still crippled up with laughter, people... 'country flies are stupid'.  Oh my god.) and wheeze out...

"City flies are hip to your ways?"

Then we were both trying not to pee our collective pants.  The flies were grateful for the brief respite.

Stupid country flies.

Comments

[Mark]

Creepy??? Apparently I need to work on this perceived skullduggery (how's that for working a prime word into the conversation?).

Oh, and please allow me to clarify that absolutely no offense was intended to the Chinese - or to their flies. My comment only was intended to convey that they surely feel as though they'd been knocked into the next hemisphere. At least they look that way when their heads are on upside down for those first few 'post-flick' minutes... confused would be an understatement.

That was a wonderful day... I miss you D.