Ryan's Journal

...me, apparently. Below is not for those easily upset by infestations of insects.

Part 1

When I first moved into my own single in college, it came equipped with all the handy dandy sparse furniture every room comes with - standing closet, dresser, bed, desk, bookcase, and the quintessential trash can, replete with trash bag. I moved everything in, tidied up, and that was that.

Not long afterwards, I noticed a couple of fruit flies flying around. Considering myself not particularly slovenly, I figured they had come around from a neighbor and proceeded to rid myself of their presence after much jumping and clapping and washing of hands.

I spent a good portion of that summer working from home and was progressively more annoyed at the presence of one fruit fly or so, always hovering around somewhere in my field of vision, which I would eventually manage to eliminate only to find it replaced not long afterwards. It hit breaking point and, as I took a closer look around the room, I realized there was more than just one present at the moment...

Most of that night was spent devising ways to smash bugs and wondering where they came from. When I at last cleansed my property of the insects, it was time to take out the trash. Only then did I examine the trash can itself and notice it was covered inside with some sort of rotting filth, masked by the bag itself. Therein lay the source! I made do without a trash can for the rest of my dorm days.

Part 2

I moved into an apartment afterwards. Guess what there was an infestation of? Yes, that's right, more D. melanogaster. If I wanted to do some genetic experiments on regressive traits, I had all the subjects I could ever want.

On a side note: folks, this is why normal people have a lid on their trash cans.

I couldn't deal with killing all of these, but it was fall and they soon fell prey to the cold. Cue this past summer. Our small friends return. In reduced force, to be sure, but they're still there. I enact Operation Purge Apartment and gather all the junk into one room, requesting that anything unnecessary be disposed of.

We make a discovery. One of these boxes has been harboring a bag of food. For over a year. Want to guess where the fruit flies were coming from?

Epilogue

I took out the garbage today. I closed off the bag as quickly as I could. There were about twenty fruit flies trying to escape besides the five that did. The bag is in the dumpster now. I think we're finally safe...

Postlogue

I'm not slovenly!