Flying Down

Am I naturally clumsy?  I'm not sure.  Do I often tell people I am?  Yes.  Why, you ask?  Should I ever fall down in public, then people will say, "Oh, she's just naturally clumsy," and the moment will pass without incident.  Without my previous disclaimer, people would feel shocked and the fall would become instant news, "Did you see the normally agile and athletic Lily fell down in the grocery store parking lot?  She must be having some personal problems."  You see the value in the preemptive strike?

This explanation serves as a preface to the story I'm about to tell.  Keep that in mind.

Last night I went down to the basement to fetch a pail of water (not really, but for some reason this popped in my head).  While I was down there, I was amazed to see several flies buzzing around.  If you know anything about me, you know that a fly in the house will instantly enrage me.  I find it personally offensive that they are pestering me and vomiting on my various household items.  I've studiously developed a method to humiliating and killing these nasty insects.  In fact, years ago I dedicated a whole blog to sharing it (I just tried to find it to include a link, but it was too much work so I gave up).  Basically, I grab a kitchen towel, create a diversion with my left hand while my right hand annihilates him.  

While the flies sat on the ceiling watching me, I picked up the closest murder weapon (Eli's dress up pirate jacket) and went to work.  I also used Marina's toy kitchen spatula to help with the corpse clean-up.  I was meeting with much success until something unexpected happened.  On one fly, I was using an advanced technique:  the jump hit for the ceiling dwellers.  Apparently my vertical got too high (what's new?) and I came down on top of a tin box sitting on the floor (along with thousands of other toys).  The tin crumpled, my foot howled, and I started to go over. I had a moment where I thought, "I could make an effort to stop myself, but I'm just not going to."  So, onto the floor I toppled.  While I lie there, thinking about life, wondering if that glass of wine I had after dinner went to my head, I felt amazed that I had fallen down.  A few seconds later, I had another thought about the spider infestation in our basement, which broke through my relaxation time.  I sprung from the ground, shaking my hair out and feeling suddenly itchy.  Since the fly witnessed my fall, I had to knock his butt off.

As a bit of an aside:  in one mad swing, I inadvertently injured a small spider living near the window.  I didn't notice until I saw a crimson line on the white window.  It was a trail of blood he was leaving while trying to escape my evil, swinging pirate jacket.  I felt kind of bad about maiming him, especially in the face of his obvious suffering.  I don't like sharing my house with a bunch of spiders but I that doesn't mean I want to watch them all struggling to live (Mark is rolling his eyes at the computer screen right now).  I killed the bubble-butt spider to put him out of his bleeding misery.

I keep complaining to Mark about my foot pain today (Happy Father's Day, listen to my problems).  I can't wait to exaggerate a limp tomorrow so I can tell everyone what happened.  Maybe I should get a walking boot.

I'm including some illustrations.

The blasted tin box.

My fly-killing weapon of choice.  Ironically I didn't notice the skull and crossbones until I was taking this picture.  Seems very appropriate.

I need to go wash my hands to see if I can remove all this insect and arachnid blood from them.  I feel like Lady Macbeth.  "Out damned spot!"