The first thing you need to understand is that my van has no air-conditioning. It's a metal box sitting in a desert in 95 degrees.
Yes, the walls and ceiling are insulated.
But still, we who can drive to better climates usually do so by early April. That did not happen this year. We did drive from Quartzsite to Pahrump, NV. Nice town. Has a Wal-Mart.
Except, in order to handle the heat my sliding door and windows had to be open. The screened vents I purchased did not allow air circulation.
I don't remember making the sign but I must have done so.
“Delicious, sweaty, dirty human inside”
The flies brought their extended families. A conservative estimate of the dinner guests would be 300. I was breakfast, lunch, dinner and all night snacks.
I could not lay under my tiny fan.
I could not expose any skin and I also could not cover myself due to the heat. I cried and screamed a lot.
Then I made a huge mistake. I purchased fly strips. Non-toxic, evil smelling fly strips. The flies investigate the smell and get stuck to the strip, alive. It takes hours for them to die.
Here was my mistake…
Fly strips ATTRACT flies. 300 flies became 500 flies with 250 of them stuck and screaming their wings off while swaying in the wind. Yes, wind! Remember my door is open. The wind is fierce.
Four fly strips are now blowing from my ceiling. The wind makes them swirl, dance and momentarily move horizontally.
I got stuck on the fly strips. I have a witness. She is sworn to silence.
When one is stuck on a fly strip, they can't simply grab it and pull it off. When one is hysterical, one flays around a bit and the second strip becomes attached to their hair, complete with the dead and dying flies.
And yet, more flies are arriving. I did not have a rational solution. I fled Pahrump, leaving my loved one behind due to her pending mail and appointments in the area. I drove to a higher, cooler location.
Zero flies. I don't miss them. I've almost got the glue scrubbed off my skin.
I'm just going to shave off my hair.
Noooo! When I was a kid on the family farms we smacked flies with flyswatters and they tended to hang out where the cow-poo was. They were annoying and you didn’t want them on your food but that was the extent of my thoughts about them. Now there are less cattle farms and way more poultry farms. If you live within a mile or two of one you are tortured by flies. They don’t just land and fly away. They crawl on you. They bite. They’re persistent! Then the farmers spread the manure they scrape off the barn floors on the fields to fertilize the soil for crops. Now everyone has millions of flies. On the first big warm sunny day of spring you’ll see a white wall turn black with them. Some places have ordinances about how close to town limits or human housing you can have poultry barns. I’m curious though. Why so many flies where you are? I wouldn’t blame you for taking off!
LOL. Thanks for sharing your great sense of humor. AND I could feel your pain. Blek!