By Wilma Mazo

We wanted to tell you about the fruit flies that are now walking on our faces. And that’s no joke. They arrived on Sunday, and there’s no sign that they will leave anytime soon, all because we’re suckers for fruit and vegetables, ripened on tree, bush and vine and bursting with enticing aromas and just-picked succulence, displayed, jewel-like, at our many, local farm stands and front-yard, honor-system kiosks. We wait impatiently for the late-August white peaches, large and small plums, and blueberries that we can’t reap from our own three bushes. Each trip to our favorite stands nets us mouth-watering delectables for cooking, canning, or eating, sometimes right on the spot, savory juice licked from our wrists before even a drop is wasted. But this year, our most-recent trip bought us unwelcome tag-alongs!

Where were they when we filled our trunk with bushels, pecks, and quarts of fruit and veggies? We didn’t see even one!! Our agreed-upon theory is that there was only one couple and that they had temporarily decided to use some method of planned parenthood until they were tucked away safely in our warm trunk, unsuspected, under the calyx of a glossy eggplant or perhaps under a still-green, still-attached peach leaf. Wherever! By the time we got the stuff home, that single, previously abstaining couple had now copulated their brains out and had produced an uncountable population of offspring, currently populating our home!!

Kill one, and sixteen more appear out of thin air, particularly at meal-prep time and never late for dinner. We have become so paranoid in our hunt for these bugs, that we are even killing the coffee grounds, counter-sunk nail holes in our new kitchen and the caraway seeds from our rye bread!! Yes, killing. But no chemical insecticides, we assure you. Only our bare hands. Sure, sometimes we have to whack them more than once. Damn things just get up; look us squarely in the eyes; square their pink shoulders; and fly off where we can’t reach, leering down at us. But, even then, no bug spray. The spiders, adorning all our corners and moldings are our only hope. That’s Nature’s way. We are, after all, Model Citizens