Confession

Lately, my children have grown more lax in their efforts to shut the doors when they are going in and out and around and through the house.  And, since we live near many a dairy farm, it's not hard to believe we have flies buzzing around like mad.  Flies everywhere!  As I was rocking my Ruby before nap, I noticed two especially tasty morsels at her window and a few more dead ones by the sill.  Which reminded me of a past transgression that I am now ready to confess:

 When I was about 6 years old and living in Rockwood, Oregon (oh yes, for those who know the area of which I blog, I lived in the heart of Rockwood), that particular summer we also had a flummoxing fly problem (probably because all five of us kids, much like my three now, left the doors wide open while we went to play).  My dad gathered us together one Saturday morning and promised a shiny quarter for every dead fly we brought to him in the next half hour.  Twenty five cents!  Heck, it was 1984 and to my six-year old self you might as well have told me a million bucks.  I was motivated.  Originally, I began as my older siblings, swatting at anything small and black that flew, but soon realized my height and agility was not at all ideal for the task at hand.  Initially, I was devastated.  I had a million-dollar bounty dangling like my Cabbage Patch doll my brothers stripped naked and hung by a clothes hanger in my bedroom one day in honor of Halloween. . . and I was just out of reach.  Ah, but I was smart.  Brilliantly smart.  I realized that every window sill in our at least twelve window sill home had one to two, possibly even three or four, dead fly carcasses just ripe for the taking.  I grabbed some paper towels, pinched one or two in between the folds and brought them to my dad.  The money flowed, I tapered off my cherry picking and pretended to swat at the air a few times so as to not give away my strategy.  After about a half dozen little victories, I could tell my dad was impressed at my fly-swatting prowess and I started to feel guilty.  I may have nabbed one or two more flies, but then I ended it.  I kept the money and never told my dad.  So, there you have it.  Technically, I brought him dead flies, but they were already dead.