Fair Warning

Something died in our house. 

And not just our willingness to ever go to school / work.

No, I suspect a small mammal also died.  I don't know for sure, because we can't find it.  But there are certain clues.

One day, I came home from work and there was a fly in the kitchen. 

"That's weird," I said, "I didn't even know flies were alive in January."

Over the course of the next few days, I learned that whatever their usual season may be, flies can live - nay, THRIVE - in January.

There's really nothing like a sudden explosion of flies in your house to make you feel sophisticated and elegant. 

Honestly, I don't care how fancy your living room is - the addition of a single fly and you are instantly, at best, a hardscrabble miner like Katniss Everdeen.  Add two flies?  You are living in an Appalachian outhouse.  Three flies and I don't care how much your new couch cost, this is now the poorest of Indian slums.

So we looked in the basement.  Couldn't smell anything, couldn't find anything.  Without being able to tackle the source (definitely a Chris job) we had to start swatting flies (almost entirely a Beth job). 

A few days later, we were making some decent progress, and the flies were dwindling, and hope was returning to our household.

Lilly invited the neighbor girl over and as she escorted her little friend into the house, I hear her saying, "I just want to warn you that there are a LOT of flies in our house."

Oh, Lilly.  Sweet Lilly. 

Can you please not confess to that?  Can you please just let her figure it out?  You know what this is like?  This is like when you got a little bit of ringworm and I was like, don't show anybody, and you showed somebody, and then you got sent to the nurses office.  This is like when you told everyone you saw a picture of your Dad wearing diaper, but really he was just lounging in some light blue boxers.  And this is like when you tell every person you meet that your Dad was in a car accident. 

Lilly regularly throws Chris right under the bus.

All kids have a problem with over sharing, but Lilly approaches it GLEEFULLY. 


The flies are gone.

Mostly.