To Be a Fly on the Wall

How many times have we heard people wish they could be a fly on the wall? I've said it. In fact, I said it a couple of times yesterday. It seems that we all think that flies show up to gather all the intelligence in this world. Maybe they do.

I've never personally interviewed a fly, never thought about it. Killing flies, mosquitoes and providing death chambers for mice doesn't bother me in the least.

Maybe I've been missing something all these years by doing away with these critters. Maybe, with flies especially, there's been journalistic gold right in front of my nose, or more accurately ON my nose, constantly being swatted away when it should be embraced.

I wonder what the flies would have to say if on future occasions, as a journalist, I took a different approach when my knee-jerk reaction urges me to swat the heck out of any of those dirty little critters landing on my nose or tiptoeing across my computer screen. What if, for once, I calmly put my hand down, cupped it up, and lured said fly into the palm, kindly saying, "Let's have a talk."

I could go to the kitchen, grab some bread crumbs and offer crumbs for information. Here's how the interview would go.

What is your name and how do you spell it? Shoo Fly

Is that a common name among flies? Not really, but that's what most humans call us.

Why did you come to my house? I came here because I've heard you do a lot of dumb things, and I've been looking for some material to pass along to Hollywood sitcom writers.

Hmm! Dumb things. Can you give me an example? Yeah, sure, I witnessed a good one the other day when you were trying to stuff aluminum foil in all the possible mouse entrances in your hot water heater closet.

It looked kinda stupid, seeing you wad up that aluminum foil, pick up that stick and then reach over the water heater to stuff the foil in that hole. That looked stupid, but the pay-off was when you got stuck between the water heater and the wall. Your head was dangling toward the floor and your big rear end was sticking up in the air.

It kinda reminded me of that idea I gave the writers to use on Julie Dreyfuss in her "The New, Old Christine" show. Ya know when she got her foot caught in the toilet bowl and had to lie there looking at an ear wig on the ceiling?

Seeing you stuck there in the water heater closet was hilarious. I was hoping you'd fall forward onto the floor behind the water heater and have to stand on your head while a mouse came crawling through the aluminum foil and raced around in your hair all day. That would make a great story line.

Okay, you're right, that was kinda funny, once I dislodged myself, but what else stupid have you witnessed while occupying my walls? Well, I did see what happened while you were gone and the mousetrap behind the dog couch in the garage went missing. I thought that was really funny to see your reaction when you couldn't find it. After all, you had just disposed of a dead mouse from the trap shortly before leaving. Serves you right to have the trap go missing. Wanta know what happened?

Yeah, I would like to know what happened. I found it sitting on a table clear across the room. Tell me the rest of the story. Well, after you shut the dogs and Fuzzy Wuzzy (the cat who thinks she's a dog) in the garage and drove off, things happened quickly. Another dumb mouse came to the trap for its peanut butter breakfast. The trap did its thing, and the mouse was a gonner.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was sitting on top of the couch, watching all this, and smiling because the trap saved her a lot of the usual "cat-and-mouse" effort. "A free and easy meal," she thought, as she jumped from the back of the couch, grabbed the mouse and its trap and carried it over to the table to have a proper meal.

She had a little difficulty removing the whole corpse from the trap, but she whiddled away at it and finished off the last bite in plenty of time to go rest on the couch before you returned. And, when you were frantically racing around the garage, yelling out, "Where the Hell did that trap go?" we were whooping it up . . . quietly, of course. We knew you were mad and that the mice had finally driven you to the edge.

You're right on that one. I have to admit there for a second I figured I was headed to the looney bin, after getting stuck in the water heater closet and losing a mousetrap, all in a couple hours time. It did disorder my mind, but my reasoning returned. So, as a fly on our Lovestead wall, have you seen any other samples of stupidity during your stay here? Yeah, I'd have to say feeding the deer off your deck could turn into a good story. I think that's kinda stupid, and so do the mice. I'm just waiting around until one of those whitetail does comes right up on the deck and starts watching the TV sitcoms. Of course, since I'm the fly on the wall who provides a lot of the material, there could come a time when an upcoming segment shows a lady stuck in the water heater closet and a deck-fed deer who broke through the sliding glass door, looking for more hand-outs is standing right behind her, ramming her in the rear. That's got great possibilities.

I really like being a fly on your wall, cuz I'll have good material for years to come.