My inspiration for this article came from the fruit flies that have taken up residency in my apartment. I admit, they're gross. They're everywhere, and talking about having them probably isn't the classiest way to start an article. But one day, while using the bathroom amidst what could only be described as a cloud of flies (this article just keeps getting better, huh?), I came to a realization.
My name is Sydnee, and I am a fruitaholic. I eat any and every fruit that comes within arm's reach of me with the exception of blueberries because they are gross. As a result of feeding this addiction, the first fly (Fly 0, if you will) entered my apartment roughly two weeks ago.
As I looked at that one fly, I didn't think much of it. I was existing, he was existing, and we were existing together. So I didn't do much about it.
Many days and a lot of fruit pass. In that time, Fly 0 took it upon himself to find what I can only assume was another quite attractive fly and start a family. And, those children had children of their own…and the next generation did the same.
Needless to say, there was a lot of action going on in the room and I wasn't involved in any of it.
All that action brought me to a position where I could no longer ignore the problem. Granted, I'm not in the middle of a full-on infestation. I could probably ignore them for a bit longer if these flies didn't have the most gumption I have ever seen in a fly.
They land on EVERYTHING. Plates. Body parts. Shower heads. GLASSES. They are afraid of nothing.
So, I made a few traps. It started with putting fruit in a bag with some holes. After I eat an orange, I put the peel in a bag and, after a day, some flies would have found their way in without a way out. After a little while longer, I started to smash up fruit in a little dish and add soap to lure the flies in and have the soap on their wings trapping them.
But I had never intended to really do anything about these flies. The next thing I knew, I was devising ways to trap them and trying to kill them by catching them in my hands or hitting them against a wall.
And it was then, as I was surrounded by a cloud of flies while peeing, that I realized that the flies had changed me. I realized how easily we are changed by the world around us.
Lots of things in this world are single flies. Having to wait in line. Walking behind slow people. Being brushed over by others who are making plans. Self-doubt. Tests. Papers. Jobs. Bills. Lots of things bother us a little, but we brush them off and accept them.
But the problem is when we are bombarded with numerous flies at the same time. One or two are easily managed, but many can be annoying. Annoying to a point where we often compromise who we are or what we believe in order to get rid of the flies.
The current climate – and I'm not just referring to the bipolar weather of New Jersey – is a breeding ground for flies, if not a fly itself. There are people who are taking advantage of hateful language and using it as an excuse to also speak hatefully.
There are individuals of certain races, genders, ethnicities, sexualities, and beliefs that are coming into contact with more flies than they are used to. It's because of this that we, as a generation, seem "touchy" or "opinionated".
These things are not new; they're just new to you. My actions of killing the flies are not something I recently learned or am doing out of spite toward the flies. It's an innate response, a way to defend what is mine the same way the flies (if they had enough brain cells to do so) would act in a manner to defend what is theirs.
The world is pushing many of us to the edge, causing once silent people to start to speak out. As a result, we are being branded poorly because of this. These are not actions; they are reactions. If the flies hadn't come into the apartment in the first place, I wouldn't be seeking another organism to kill.
The same is true for those who are working to make a change but are facing roadblocks along the way. They are reacting to a situation, and the people who instigated it are pointing fingers or scratching their heads and wondering why.
The reason: we can only tolerate so many fruit flies before we start to do something about it.
