Confessions of a Fly Swatter

I've got more than one part to this one, so bear with me.

First. These flies. Now, I believe in reincarnation, and the Wheel of Life, and, really, I'm not going out of my way to find innocents to squash, but flies? What did that being have to do in his/her past life to warrant coming back as a fly? What horrors did one commit? Was Hitler thence a fly, for example, or did he do time as some other lowly creature? A lobster? A louse, perhaps? With this thought in mind, and the understanding that Tibetans believe that a physical life is supposed to be hard work, why not give flies their due? We know they're disease carriers and annoying, and sometimes even embarrassing. So it's my thinking that if you came back as a fly, your life should be hard, really hard, and if you're crossing my path, you're going to be reincarnating in that form a few more times before you've either worked hard enough to earn a higher incarnation, or gotten smart enough to stay away from me.

Next. This fly swatter. I have a complication to my efforts to 'help' my lesser-evolved brethren on their way to enlightenment. I can't usually see them. When I do, I'm further limited by bad reflexes, and an innate aversion to breaking things to get at them, so I'm just not the go-to if Mr. Fly has landed on the tv screen. This frustrates my husband no end because I sit closer to it, and could 'get there' and 'get IT' before he could get mobile. If Sir Fly is happening to be around the lamp, he's still lucky, because the light is a problem for me, and, again, I won't break furniture to 'get him.'

(This is where I should say that I'm a reformed pestilence decimator. In college, I was willing to cut a path of broken dishes across my fridge to get that one cockroach, or launch combat boots at the more common flying albatrosses (also cockroaches, but definitely enlarged for the visually impaired) that likely paid for their spaces alongside us in the dorm. I used traps, sprays, roach chalk (where's that stuff now, I ask??) whatever. I got it done.)

Now? Not so much.

So, in my house, the miscreants have a 'safe zone.'

This said, one must naturally consider that a place with a 'safe zone' must also have a NOT 'safe zone' yes? You would be correct.

The kitchen. More specifically the kitchen window.

These least of their flying lot land on the sill, the glass, or window frame and buzz at me, as though they WANT my attention. I can SEE them here in my killing zone. Sometimes they do 'fly bys' over the stove to let me know they're on approach, but sure enough, they'll drop in or parade or bounce across my limited field of destruction. I've come to think of these ones as those who really need to come back a few more times before going up the ladder. Stupid enough to get stuck in a clean house, but to flaunt yourself past the self-proclaimed Bringer of Death is well? Stupid.

Last? There's a process to my Fly Swatting activities. It's not merely a plastic waffle at the end of a wire handle. For one, that's impersonal, and another, it's too far away for any delusion of accuracy. No, I keep a paper towel handy. Usually, it's folded on top of the coffee maker, which btw is BLACK, and a perfect hiding place for my targets, who (again) don't seem to be smart enough to figure that out. I keep a census, too. This lets me know if I've gotten everybody, and whether the trespassers have stepped up their infiltration activities. Usually, we have one a day. If the screen is open on the porch, and the cat has been out there, we can get up to five, but this is rare, and I guess word gets out, because the day after a high number, nobody comes by for a 2D makeover. (See, psych stat has a use!!) Now, what would all this be without an entertainment component?

I've got one.

I needed a cover for my lack of reflexes, see, so I talk to my targets, while I get my paper towel in hand and plot my route of squash. Flies, on what has to be an instinctual level because they've got NOT MUCH ELSE, have strategies for avoiding impending DOOM. Scientists have studied this phenomenon long and hard, so I'll skip it here, but suffice to say, they're devious at the last moment. I talk to my little squishlings. Something like you'd do with the rabid dog eyeing your leg as you try to get your groceries into the house. I move slowly, deliberately, and cajole them with a description of what I'm doing, why, and where they fit into the scheme of my compressings for the day. I did this just because it was a 'me' thing to do -my friends will attest to this personality trait- but then my husband overheard me. After some assurances from him that I'm most definitely 'not quite right' and my agreement that we're well matched, I decided to continue with this sideshow to keep up the ratings. I will use this in my stand-up act, someday, I think. For now, though, it's simply the prelude to another lowly life ended, and the expectation that said miscreant will come back with enough sense to stay out of my kitchen window. I'm doing my part for the betterment of Life.

This is my story and I'm stickin' to it.

==Twenty three flies were deceased-isized to facilitate the inspiration of the making of this blog.
YAY!!!!! :)

OK, so I'm new at this. It's not like I can't think of things to say, but are they things you want to read? :)

So, I'll start with today. It's raining. A half-decade ago, all this meant was dragging an umbrellla off the shelf in my hall closet, or making sure I had my 'shmoo suit' to put over me and whatever I was carrying. I was closer to the bus stop, but on a busy road, so getting there was easy, but staying unspattered? Timing. Of course, if I get it wrong, then I get it worse, because everybody can see the white cane, and that makes me more fun to soak. No worries, really. It's not like I'M gonna melt.

So, then comes the eye surgery, and I don't need the cane anymore. No, not driving. Not 'un-legally blind,' just seeing that little bit better that the cane is not needed -enter snow disclaimer here. I'm liking this development! Wouldn't this have been a gift-send when my son was in day care, and I had to carry his soy milk, diaper bag, nebulizer, HIM -no feather-weight belt for HIM- AND my briefcase. I have a whole nother free hand! I can carry more home from Wal-Mart foraging, or can flip-a-person-off without hesitation. I now have to keep the Disabled ID handy because I'm not 'obvious' and now I get "Retard!" muttered under their breath rather than the exaggerated smile (that I nearly always returned) because nobody 'blind' could be doing the things I was doing, right? That summer, having this success to open doors, my sweetie gently tells me I should get my hearing checked.

OK, but why? I've been using my ears to protect me for years! They're my supersense, now that I can see, the ears can rest, but they're not deficient! Dutiful student I was, standing with my mother, listening for whatever might come our way, and telling her when it was safe, so she could check my work. So, my ears? My knees, my back, yes, but my ears?

Imagine my shock when I saw the audiogram. It wasn't quite flat-lined, but there weren't any high points. My official diagnosis, since we crips must keep this information close to our persons at all times, is 'severely to borderline profoundly deaf.' I scored really well on voice recognition, or they'd have passed by me on the feasability of hearing aids. (Guess all those language classes paid off?) The audiologist said I've been 'filling in the blanks' of what little I've been hearing for years, and got really good at it.

OK, so to build on this point, I've been intuitively sensing the bus coming to mow me down, and my brain has been 'filling in the blank' where the sound was supposed to be, and I've been running from something I didn't really hear? Or, the kids were raising the dead with their noise for hours before my mind thought to input some hint of their activities, leading me to rein them in, and therefore restore peace to my neighbors? Or the time when I called the police because the upstairs people were vibrating my furniture with THEIR stereo was 'just another filled-in blank'?

On the flip side, I really must track down all my former neighbors and beg pardon for listening to my own stereo in what I thought was a 'low' volume, but was more likely an air raid siren on Tornado Day.

Flash to now, and I'm thinking myself 'adjusted' to my 'new' disability. I think, as one lives with a disability all their life, the addition of another, or change in status of the 'original' is something we almost expect. I grew up hearing 'Be thankful for what you have, because you don't know when God will take it away." I resented this vehemently. Why not take from the kids who laugh at what I already don't have? This did get me thinking about what I'd 'prefer' get taken, though, since those same tormentors' parents would call me 'blessed' and let me 'bless' their babies as a ward against 'evil visiting them'. I spent hours thinking about wheelchairs, or prosthetic arms, or iron lungs -for a claustrophobic, that one was a doosey. I even tried to learn sign language, 'just in case.' You can't predict God's agenda, so might as well cover the bases, eh? As if surviving cancer, being blind and having radiation-related side-effects wasn't enough?

Now, it's a joke, I tell with relish. "This is how I've kept myself alive all these years! Using nearly useless ears to compensate for a slightly better-functioning eye!" It sounds better with the whole telling, but you get the point. Truth be told, I'm amazed that I'm here. Not because I was deaf all those times I was listening for traffic, but because all that 'filling in the blanks' was something I didn't know I was doing. The 'from where' and 'why' of that is awesome.

Oh, and officially the etiology of the hearing loss is 'unknown' though they suspect it was from all my headphone use in early years. (Another blog, that.) But I didn't have problems until my last pregnancy. A midwife I consulted told me that it was 'not unusal' for women to lose hearing during pregnancy and that it 'would come back' -usually- after delivery. Mine didn't. So, I've traded my hearing for my son. I didn't think of that during all those childhood 'what if's.'

Not bad, really. If I can presume to say such a thing about a process of which I am merely the recipient. Hearing for a whole new Life. Blindness for my own. And with the 'miralces' of modern medical Lifeplan Management, I have slight gains in both, which I can use to see to the graceful raising of my son.

So, it's raining, and there are school supplies to herd into a cart at Wal-Mart, but the hearing aids are sensitive little boogers, and cannot even tolerate what little sweat I produce at the gym, so going out without special care is a no-no. (They WILL melt. :( ) So, shmoo suit, or umbrella, and a box for the hearing aids, because I have never minded getting wet, and forget about the $3ooo I'm carrying in my ears. Then again, I have the luxury -and I do know the heft of that word- to stay in. School doesn't start until the 12th, right? I've had two really close calls -Gretchen vs. pool pump, for one- that have put the Fear of Wet in me good. Seriously, though, we all know it takes a while to fully realize the implications of a 'new' disability. Find the humor in it, as soon as you can, and the work will be easier.

Ziplocs are great, too.