Friday, June 26, 2009

Well here’s an update on my new toy, my electric fly swatter. As luck would have it, the sun hasn’t shown since the day it arrived. Hence the bug population has been characteristically lying low. But it hasn’t stopped me in my quest. So I’ve been faithfully setting up in my back yard with my Sudoku puzzle book and swatter in hand. You think a fly would show himself? Wrong. I’ve resisted testing it on myself since my last encounter of self-testing with the “dog bark collar” proved such a painful lesson. I did however capture a misguided snail that slid into the wrong place at the wrong time. A touch of the red button reassured me the swatter worked but snail’s reaction was a little disappointing. I mean some steam and … well never mind. Anyway a fly was still my target.
Sue and I were sitting at the patio table out back and of course my swatter lie close by, but still nothing. I mean to tell you I was getting hungry for my first kill.
Suddenly a bug buzzed by and I took a wild swat at it but missed. Sue immediately starting in on me for swinging at a butterfly, but I countered that it was a bee, a killer bee at that. Well she wasn’t buying, and continued “bugging” me about my lack of discretion in targets. Man did I want to try that swatter. As she continued to rant, I began to feel like one of two surviving castaways on an island; you know, where there’s nothing to eat and you look over and the other person turns into a pork chop or something. Well I gave one warning because the consequences of making her my first victim were setting in, but secretly hoped that she would ignore my admonition. Unfortunately it was one of the few times she listened, probably saw that “pork chop look” in my eyes.
In desperation, I’ve been leaving the doors and windows open in hopes that some hapless fly would fall for the aromas of dinner one day. Then I heard him. Unmistakable, that buzzing sound; I quickly closed all the windows and doors and began the hunt. And then there he was, crawling on the bay window with only minimal things to knock over if I decided to swing. I closed in anticipating my first real strike. Sure enough, as I closed in he flew right into the waiting swatter. Well I was anticipating the ultimate. You know like when they electrocute a prisoner and they forget to soak the sponge in water that they put on top his head.
Like sparks and smoke and maybe even a small explosion, something to rival “Old Sparky” in that Florida penitentiary. I’m sorry to say the swatter was as effective as it was disappointing. He just died. I mean it might as well have been a gas chamber or something. Not even a jump- up like he’d stepped on a hot plate. I even shook it around a little in hopes he was just in shock, but nothing. I unceremoniously tipped him into the trash and that was that.
So my first hunt was successful but unfulfilling. But I’m not giving up, I want sparks and fire. So I’ve got to go; I hear a voice calling me to do some kind of chore around the house; I think it’s coming from my little pork chop, err, I mean my wife.

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