truth in life

Lord of the Flies

~ thedailydish ~ 6 Comments

When we returned home from the Midwest, the first thing I did was drag my sorry self upstairs to crash out in bed. After nearly 15 hours in the car, it was all I could do. But the first thing my husband did, being the amazing soul he is, was go through the entire house to make sure everything was just as we’d left it. And everything was fine. Save for the flies.

When we left John says he noticed one lone fly bzzzzing round an upstairs room. No big deal. He figured it’d be dead by the time the weekend was over.

HAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!

Remember Cutie? My daughter’s runaway hamster?? Yes, I know I haven’t written about him in weeks. But that’s b/c we thought he was still on vacation. Well… he is, except it’s that reeeeeeeaaaalllly long vacation that never ends. Ugh. we can now state w/ fair certainty that Cutie has become banquet to 50,000 flies. So we’ve spent the better part of two days shooing, swatting and otherwise casting out these winged creatures from our happy home. And in tackling this new and vexing challenge, I have noticed something truly profound.

When a fly gets trapped inside, they follow a particular pattern. First, They zoom from room to room looking for an exit. Second, they find a window. They fly back and forth past the window, assessing the possibility of escape. In a last-ditch effort, they begin to fly into the window, over and over, as though their feeble crashes will at last force the glass and they will be free. Eventually, the exhausted fly succumbs to the inevitable, either crawling up into a ball and breathing its last, OR conversely, overcoming its initial aversion and fear and FINALLY allowing me to gently scoop it up and release it out into the world.

Having watched this scenario play out OH SO MANY times over the past couple days, I have been struck by the similarity between humans and flies. These flies leave you wondering. WHAT THE HELL??!! ARE YOU REALLY SO DAMN STUPID?? I AM HERE – ARE YOU BLIND?! MY HAND! It is GUIDING YOU OUT – SEE THERE!! THE OPEN WINDOW!!!! IT’S RIGHT THEEERRRRRREEE!! I AM TRYING TO SAVE YOU, YOU MORON!!!

When a human becomes trapped – and here I am speaking rather metaphorically – so by this I could mean a myriad of things. But when a human becomes similarly “trapped” w/ no hope of escape, their response is very much like the fly. We are stubborn. We are STUPID. We do not want Help. We don’t NEED HELP. Instead we rush round looking for a means of escape. OH! And there it is. But it’s not, not really. No, it’s an impenetrable hurdle. So we bang out heads against the proverbial glass, frustrating ourselves and every conceivable attempt at freedom. And when that *Great Hand from the Sky* reaches down to help, what do we do?? We fail to see it. Or if we do, we RUN THE HELL AWAY.

Sometimes life presents you w/ a metaphor that you just can’t help but notice. I do not profess to be any more in tune w/ the great Cosmos than the next guy, but I can tell you this whole FLY THING has gotten my attention. The past several days have been pretty hard for me. I do not like vertigo. Yes, it is BAD. Having to steady myself constantly against the rotational force of the planet, whilst everyone else goes about their daily business blissfully unencumbered SUCKS. Feeling shitty always puts me in a slightly philosophical frame of mind. SO. Feeling this way, I would just like to say HEY. HEY BIG GUY. If you are up there, pitying me or watching me with amusement, FEEL FREE TO HELP. I am here, just smacking my head against the glass, so You just FEEL FREE to stick that big ol’ mitt out for me already. As long as you’re not going to smash me dead, I_am_YOURS.

Sunday

~ thedailydish ~ 6 Comments

Yesterday, early afternoon. We left the house to go pick up our older daughter from a friend’s, then proceed downtown to check out the Philly Home Show. My husband is crazy about home improvement stuff. So we left our house, drove 6 blocks to our friends’ place, got our daughter, drove another 1/2 block to the service station for some oil, turned around and drove another 12 blocks to go get on the expressway, when we hear this loud scraping noise. WHAT WAS THAT?! My husband stops the car. He hops out to discover

his favorite coffee cup’s been hitching a ride on the roof all this time. The coffee was still in the cup, and from what he said, tasted as good as it did when we left the house. Now if that isn’t a testament to my husband’s impeccable driving, I don’t know what it.

So we get downtown, park, and we’re walking through Chinatown to the convention center. I love Chinatown. It’s so neat. Where else would people sell chicken feet out of a box located right on the sidewalk? Now THAT’s convenience. My older daughter was thinking there isn’t a whole lot of meat on a chicken’s foot. Silly! These look plenty meaty. Yum-YUM.

We were so happy to finally reach the convention center because it was REALLY REALLY COLD outside. BBBBRRRRR!!! But unfortunately when we got to the convention center, and went through the door that said ENTRANCE and were just about to walk over to the booth for our tickets, we were stopped by a security guard who told us that we had to go back outside and around to the other end of the building and use the OFFICIAL ENTRANCE DOOR FOR THE HOME SHOW. We pointed out that the ticket booth was a stone’s throw away, and there were lots of other people standing around but apparently at the PA Convention Center you must use THE PROPERLY LICENSED DOOR. So we had to go back outside into the freezing cold and walk around to the other end of the building to wind up exactly where we’d just been. b/c THAT’S HOW IT WORKS HERE IN PHILLY and don’t you forget it.

We finally bought our tickets, paid another $6 to check our coats, then spent the next 20 minutes at the restroom. You see, when you have children and you are THE MOM, you spend a lot of time in bathrooms. I have seen the inside of so many of them that I have my own personal Potty System™.  I am a patient woman. That works in my favor. I ask my kids once, twice, sometimes three times, DO YOU HAVE TO GO? I rarely listen to the answer because sometimes they lie.  So instead I say, YOU WILL GO NOW BECAUSE THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. My older daughter is very good, she is older and listens to me. My younger daughter is a crap-shoot (no pun intended). Like yesterday. We were all tightly squeezed into the stall and she adamantly denied having to go.  Then we get outside and 5 minutes later she’s hopping up and down. This is the norm. So I spend a lot of time in bathrooms. I critique them silently while my child/ren are doing their business. I award mental points for cleanliness, stock-age and overall aesthetic appeal. Bonus points are given to places w/pull-down plastic changing tables.  My kids may be out of diapers, but no one should have to change their baby on a cold & often filthy floor. Restrooms with sanitary product dispensing machines with ACTUAL PADS AND TAMPONS get extra bonus points. The convention center bathrooms are new and fairly clean.  They have multicolor tile patterns on the wall above the toilets, placed to interest mothers just like me. They have soap dispensers with the foamy type of soap I prefer. The bathrooms at the Franklin Institute (where we went Saturday) are nice. They are very clean. In fact, I noted seeing the same cleaning attendant in three of their bathrooms as we made our way through the building. She was very diligently sweeping up stray bits of TP.  A+

The home show itself was okay. We went last year, and it was exactly the same this year. Aisle after aisle of people trying to sell you stuff. Flooring, kitchens, bathrooms, home security. Saunas and spas. HOT TUBS!! My older daughter helpfully pointed out that several of the large tubs have built-in places for your WINE. WOW. There were a few people set up with those head-mics, yelling at you to buy their knives, or wonder towels, or amazing dirt sucking up mops. I saw one guy actually toting his purchased mop around the place and couldn’t help thinking a GUY WHO MOPS!! WOW. We even saw GM selling cars, though i don’t know many people rich enough to have a car inside their house. As I told my husband, we have been there 2 years in a row, do not ask me to come a third. Fortunately, we are in complete agreement. I found out on the last aisle, the only reason he wanted to come was to buy more stained glass for our house. Unfortunately, he forgot that he bought the stained glass at last year’s FLOWER SHOW. Oh well. We’ll be back to the convention center for that in March. I will try to remember to use the right door.