Sometimes in winning, we still lose.
I don’t remember who once told me that, but I’m sure it irritated me at the time, because I hate when people say things to try to make me think. I think enough on my own, I don’t need Confucius-esque aphorisms to make me spend more time in my head.
Anyway, like I said, I’m sure it irritated me then, just like it irritates me now to find out that whoever said it was right.
But let me back up a bit.
I was on the phone with Dee-Dee Saturday morning, waiting for my bagel to finish toasting, when I opened up my trash can to toss away the empty bagel bag. The second I lifted the lid, at least five fruit flies swarmed up into my face, and I almost dropped the phone.
“Oh gross! Oh… oh, gross!” I yelled.
“What? What is it?”
I slammed the lid shut and said, “Okay, I just threw something in the garbage, and like a hundred fruit flies flew right in my face!”
“Oh, yeah. They’re really bad this year. My sister has them upstairs, too. You should just set out a glass of wine.”
“A glass of wine? Why?”
“Because the flies will go in it and drown.”
“So then I’ll have a glass full of dead fruit flies?”
“Better than a house full of live ones, don’t you think?”
“You make a good point.”
After I hung up the phone, I just felt so dirty – I mean, what kind of ramshackle hovel am I living in that gets infested with fruit flies? I don’t even eat fruit! Now, microwave popcorn flies, or frozen pizza flies, or cheese and crackers flies – those I could understand. But aside from that puzzling bag of generic dried apricots my grandmother gave me for my birthday this year, I can’t recall the last time there’s been a piece of fruit in this apartment.
But I realized that it was too late to worry about the past. What’s done is done, I always say. I needed to stop asking “why me” and focus on “get the hell out of my apartment, sucka fruit flies.”
I pulled the cork out of the half-empty bottle of Pinot Noir sitting on my counter, and grabbed a juice glass from the sink. Just as I was about to pour the wine, I thought about how my father would always tell me that if something was worth doing, it was worth doing right. So I walked over to the cupboard, grabbed a nice red wine glass, and poured it halfway full. Within ten minutes, I saw a bold, wide-eyed fruit fly prancing around the rim of the glass.
“Come on… go in. That’s it… closer, closer,” I said softly, watching intently as the fruit fly tiptoed down the inside edge of the glass, already mildly intoxicated by the delicate bouquet of this 3-day old wine.
He kept walking around the edge in circles, getting slightly closer to the sweet liquor, but never close enough to slip in. Remembering that a watched pot never boils, and apparently a watched fly never drowns, I decided to do some housework. About half an hour later, I walked back to the kitchen to see if any progress had been made. Sure enough, there were now three fruit flies waltzing around the glass, inhaling the pungent perfume of sour grapes.
I peeked in the glass to see how many of their dead comrades they were mourning, but was disappointed to find nothing but wine in the glass. It would appear that my apartment had been infested by a swarm of true connoisseurs. These were not your ordinary wine chugging set. No, clearly they intended to savor the experience, trying to detect the subtle cherry and black pepper undertones in this once fine Pinot.
Unfortunately, I had things to do. Natasha was coming over in another hour to go shopping, so I didn’t have time to host a fully-guided tour of Napa Valley. I waited until the flies returned to the edge of the glass and grabbed the closest weapon I could find, which turned out to be a take-out menu for the Thai restaurant down the block. Just when one of the flies stepped off the rim and snuck his way down the inside of the glass a bit, I slammed the menu on top of the glass, trapping him inside. Then, I swirled the wine around, knocking him off the edge and into the crimson vortex.
I watched him swim around for a while as I waited for his companions to return. Another twenty minutes went by, but there was no sign of the other flies, so I realized that if I was going to get rid of all these unwanted guests, I needed to lay more traps. I grabbed two more wine glasses, filled them each halfway up with the stale Pinot, and then set one on the dining room table and one on my coffee table. All the bases were covered.
I felt pleased with myself when, after another half hour, I saw that my traps were working – three more flies had met their fate. When Natasha came over, as soon as she walked in, she saw the three glasses of red wine sitting out and asked, “You got company?”
“Mmm… kind of. It’s complicated. I’m having a fruit fly problem, and Dee-Dee told me to set out wine. I think they’re all gone now, though, so we should probably be fine.”
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Erratic, flitting, fruit fly-like movement.
“Dammit! There’s another one! Hold on, Nat. Stay right there – I’ll be right back.”
I ran into the kitchen to pour a fresh glass of wine and set it on the mantel, where the fly was last seen headed. Just as I returned to the living room, with glass of Pinot and soggy take-out menu in tow, I saw Natasha raise both her hands, slap them together, and flick the dead fruit fly onto the floor.
“Can we go now?” she asked, brushing her hands on her jeans.
I paused for a minute, looking down at the tiny corpse of my enemy on my hardwood floors. The battle was over. The war was won. Yet somehow, I was the one who had been defeated.

Filed under: General on August 23rd, 2005