In dubious battle with forbidden fruit flies

By Gene Weingarten, Washington Post
Published October 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Like all husbands, I know that satisfying my wife's needs is not inconsistent with satisfying my needs. So, even though I am not the tidiest guy in the world, when my wife was out of town for a week on business recently, I tried hard not to mess up the house. I did this in a typical husband's way, which was to clean up frenetically in the hour before she returned.

Eventually, everything looked spanking clean. All that was left to deal with was a pineapple on the kitchen counter, one that I had forgotten about and that had begun to smell extra-ripe. I decided to throw it out.

When I picked it up, two things happened. They happened almost simultaneously, so I'm not sure which came first: The realization that this pineapple had the consistency of a sopping wet sponge, or the eruption from its surface of a miasmic black cloud. It was exactly like the cloud of moon dust when the Eagle landed, except the moon dust was white and, so far as we are aware, did not have thousands of beady eyes.

Seconds after I picked up the floppy pineapple, my kitchen and dining room walls were speckled with fruit flies. At that very moment came the sound of a key in the front door.

Confidently assuring my wife that this was merely a momentary annoyance, I went out and bought some cans of bug spray. In retrospect, I admit that I should have suspected this would not work, because the wording on all of the cans did not suggest that fruit fly eradication was a major strength of these products. The cans read something like this:

"KILLS HOUSEFLIES, BEES WASPS, MOSQUITOES, CLUSTER FLIES, WEBWORMS, GNATS, THRIPS, GRUNT BEETLES, BAT-WINGED TURNIP APHIDS, HISSING MEAT LICE, AUSTRALIAN LOP-EARED CORN WEEVILS, HOPPY TOADS AND fruit flies."

What followed were eight days of fruitless ha-ha spraying. Whenever I would see a cluster of these satanic little beasts, I would grab a can and blast them, to no apparent effect - they'd scatter but return. Sometimes, in an insecticidal frenzy, I would grab the wrong can. Twice I hit them with Pam nonfat cooking spray, which left dinner-plate-sized nonfat grease stains on our walls.

Clearly, I needed professional help. And it just so happens that we have a monthly service contract with Orkin, the pest control people. But I was not about to go to them. Every man understands why. Orkin is for rats, mice, roaches and spiders. Manly vermin. Going to Orkin for fruit flies would be like going to your auto mechanic and asking him to make your seats fluffier.

So, instead, I consulted the Web, where I learned why I was having such grief. Fruit flies are not only resistant to poisons, but they are sex addicts and baby machines. Females become sexually mature when they are eight hours old. I also learned that some fruit flies have the longest sperm of any species on Earth, longer even than an elephant's. A fruit fly sperm can be 20 times as long as its body. (Ladies, please contemplate this the next time you "have a headache." Perhaps you can instead give thanks, because things could be a lot worse.)

The Web is filled with homespun fruit fly eradication remedies, most of which I tried. I hung flypaper from all the ceiling fans until my house looked like an Okefenokee shotgun shack. I set traps for the flies with, alternatively: wine vinegar, apple vinegar, rice vinegar, grenadine, cabernet, cooking sherry, warmed Guinness stout and a banana that I permitted to rot for their dining pleasure. I poured a quart of chlorine bleach down each of my drains and toilets. (This makes your entire house smell like a public swimming pool and, on some subconscious level, you feel vaguely guilty every time you pee.)

Nothing worked.

Just the other night, my wife and I were at a restaurant, and a fruit fly alighted on my plate. The waiter apologized and told us that the problem was citywide. He said that if we were all patient, it would be over in a few weeks when the temperatures dropped.

Hm.

As I write this, it is a balmy 82 degrees outside. But I am sitting in my dining room, shivering. That is because I have set my thermostat to 48 degrees, as low as it will go. My dog is all excited: She appears to want me to take her out to play in the snow.

Here I sit, balefully watching those heinous bugs on the wall. I bet they're watching me, too.

Who will blink first?

Actually, I will, because they have 6,400 photoreceptors in each eyeball, but no eyelids.

I hate them.

Gene Weingarten's e-mail address is weingarten@washpost.com. Chat with him online Tuesdays at noon Eastern at www.washingtonpost.com.

[Last modified October 19, 2007, 17:19:41]