Shoo, fly, shoo!

So, this is how it goes in my house. If you have more than two legs, have antennae, are smaller than a baby chicken, and can crawl into my food...if you meet all those criteria, then by all means, come on in and welcome to Death Camp, where you can check in, but if I have anything to do about it, you won't be checking out.

My husband thinks I am a homicidal temptress...I lure ants with poisoned sweets, I attract fruit flies into my vinegar brew...but really, I'm just a mom trying to keep bugs out of my son's food.

In the spring, we have ARMYS of ants marching through our kitchen, one line from behind the sink to the stove, another from a not-visible-to-the-naked-eye hole in the floor straight to the dog food bowls. I find ants crawling on my clothes, in the shower, on the bathroom wall, up my arms, in the kitchen sink, my husband even found one in my hair! I had to tell my hairstylist to look out...there is no telling what you might find.

For some reason, this invasion into our not-so-clean-in-the-first-place home doesn't bother my husband. They are harmless, he says. Yeah, right, tell that to my hairstylist.

The latest invasion into our home is fruit flies. We compost all our food and sometimes get a little lazy about taking the food down to the compost pile. Therefore, a pile of decaying strawberries, coffee grinds, banana peels, and tea bags sat in a bowl right outside our back door for a few days, just long enough to attract about eight thousand fruit flies.

My husband, forgetting the pile of crack for fruit flies was sitting outside the door, went out to the patio and left the door wiiiiide open. When I came home from work, it was like a wall-to-wall dance party for fruit flies. They were everywhere.

I had a conniption fit. I dropped my handbag and ran to the internet looking for fruit fly death nectar. I found a recipe of apple cider vineagar and dishwashing liquid. So, I put little blue bowls of the stuff around the house and watched the flies dive in. Sad, but effective.

The picture above was my husband's joke yesterday morning. I came yawning into the kitchen after a nap and saw the advertisement for my Death Camp on the counter, behind it two of my blue bowls filled with dead carcasses and old vinegar. Clever.

But, two days later, my house is fruit fly free. Now say that three times fast.