Pest Control

So this morning I had a whole bunch of fruit flies, from the left over dried small fish/kombu/bonito flakes I used for the miso soup base, I guess. I just emptied the trash hoping they would eventually go away. Well that eventuality had not yet arrived by the time I got home this evening - there were armies of fruit flies all over the house, out of all places about 5-6 of them were also on my computer!!!! War was waged - three of these make-shift fruit fly traps - glasses of vinegar (I gave them balsamic - like a last meal before you are hanged) + mirin + whiskey even, fitted with these papers rolled in to cones (apparently, they are stupid - the smell attracts them but they don't know how to navigate the double surface of the conical/glass system to get out - according to Google); this is the result two hours later and almost all flies are gone - well at least I am not running in to them as I walk around the house... Ha... ha... ha... who's your mommy now, fruit flies????

Compare that merciless attitude with this: A couple weeks ago, I had a little mouse who would show up at my apartment on a daily basis. Having seen him I took extra care to seal the few food items I had unsealed. He would still keep coming - so my apartment manager brought some of those sticky-pad-mouse-traps and put them here and there in my apartment. I reluctantly agreed, remembering this one time one of my ex's used these to combat the mice in his apartment and we would wake up in the middle of the night to little mouse screams and he would have to go and deal with it - I wouldn't know what he did with them - I want to think he didn't put a hammer to their heads - even though it would have been better than letting them a slow and painful sticky death. I imagined I will wake up and have to deal with squirming little mice in the middle of the house - the apartment manager said I could call him, but I would like to be a big girl who takes care of my problems as best as I can... The mouse still kept coming; and I would be sitting on my couch at night and he would just run around the living room floor (I have my meals in the living room) hungrily looking for crumbs and when he found the tiniest one, he would so happily take it in his tiny hands and eat away. I imagined this little fellow on the sticky pad, his tiny eyes begging for life and I wouldn't be able to do anything at that point, even if I wanted to release him... And here I was, always coming home to a life-less apartment and now here I had some life, sort of like a pet - I couldn't watch him die. It would still be pretty sad if I came home and found this little mouse dead in some other trap, I certainly could not watch him withering away to death on a sticky pad. So I told the apartment manager, we have to plug the holes in the apartment, I'd rather he not come to my place than kill him. And this we did, and I haven't seen him since... and I miss him sometimes, given also he was a pretty well-behaved mouse - I saw no droppings in any of the cupboards or in any food storage places or even on the counter... Yes, I know, I need some pet, in the lines of a dog or a cat, before this goes to the next level...

I also realized today, as I watched some fruit flies struggle their way out of the liquid, and try so hard to dry their little feathers and come out of the trap and finding myself almost reaching out to set them free in recognition of their effort, that teaching in the US has had a larger impact on me than I thought. 'Give points for effort', or 'A for effort' as we used to say, is a very American thing - where I went to school, there were no points for writing down the equation or drawing a diagram - you really had to have the problem solved properly and completely if you wanted to avoid zero - it was a binary system back where I came from...

Still I must admit, seeing them fruit flies fall in the liquid, struggle their way to death by drowning gave me immense pleasure... almost makes me wish I had more fruit flies... Ha ha ha what a bunch of idiots!!!