Hell's Kitchen

If there's one thing that gets me through in this world (in as much as I get through at all) it's lists.

This morning, upon waking bright and early -- well, bright anyway -- with unusual energy, I promptly made a very impressive To Do list which included the following things:

Kill the fruitflies
Kill the fruitflies
Kill the fruitflies
Finish the laundry
Kill the fruitflies


You may notice a pattern. I said it once and I'll say it again: If Hell actually has a kitchen, it's infested with fruitflies. Those suckers are impossible and disgusting.

Sure, we've been a bit lax these days (weeks) with regard to the immediate loading of the dishwasher . But I have excuses for that: it's no mystery that our dishwasher came special order from Oompa-Loompa land where things are efficient, yet tiny. And what with the waking up at the gruesome hour of 4:30 to get to 7am appointments in NYC (or 6:30 for later ones when I'm lucky) I'm plum tuckered out by the time after-dinner-hour comes around. Unending repetition may be just the thing for Oompa-Loompas, but Sisyphean labor is really not my thing.

I also understand that when we replaced the wonderful bright red tight-lidded simplehuman trashcan with the tidier-but-draftier under-the-counter variety, it may have sent the wrong impression to the clearly very impressionable fruitfly population. Here's the breakdown.

What I thought I was saying:
"Hello, insect population. This is a clean and tidy kitchen. It is a wholesome place. We're kid friendly and very G rated. Please, keep that in mind as you cruise past our viewing window on your way to procreate somewhere else in a galaxy far, far away."

What the fruitflies heard:

"Hey there, sexy. Lookin' for a hot place to settle in and make millions of babies? Fly no further. We've got a 24 hour buffet, dark quiet and stinky just waiting for you. When you only live 10-18 days, you may as well live it up in style. Infest, and multiply!"

As if that were bad enough.

Showing off one of his more charming talents, P poured me a very well-timed glass of brandy as I struggled through dinner preparations last night. He then went back in to his office while I wandered around distractedly muttering about a lost recipe.

My search led me to our bedroom, where, ta-DAAA, the recipe sat on the bed right next to my laptop where I had left it. (Or so it seems. I have the memory of a goldfish.) Relieved, I glanced at my computer screen. As I did so, a plaintive IM popped up from P, featuring a weeping emoticon accompanied by the heartbreaking message, "There are five flies in my brandy."

Disturbed, I looked down into my own glass. THERE WERE TWO FLIES IN MINE!

Let's do the math.

1. P pours 2 glasses of brandy at 7:10pm in the kitchen where 50 fruitflies have taken up residence.
2. P delivers 1 glass to me, and takes 1 glass to the office. At this point there are 0 flies in either glass.
3. P and I walk in opposite directions to extreme wings of the house (note: we were about 73 steps away from each other. For some reason having to do with either testosterone or self-pity, he counts this distance on a regular basis and conveys it to anyone within range).
4. Suddenly, at 7:34, we have 7 fruitflies succumbed to alcohol poisoning.

I hate math, but I can tell you the answer. Fruitflies equal war.

We've stationed a Lysol guard, we've set up a sticky-fly-tape special unit and we're evacuating the area of all possible fruitfly resources.

Do you smell that? Do you smell that?! I love the smell of Lysol in the morning.