Cold bananas suck but so does living in a barn

Our house is overrun with flies. Initially, we blamed it on bananas. Our children love bananas. In fact, bananas are the one fruit our 18 month old consistently loves. We end up buying bananas almost as often as we buy milk. Which is a lot.

We thought the flies were fruit flies resulting from old bananas laying around. My husband insisted we start storing the bananas in the fridge. But this made the bananas wildly unpopular. Cold bananas being a lot firmer than room temperature bananas. Not to mention they don’t really ripen right in the fridge. We tried defrosting the bananas by leaving them on the counter to warm up a little. However, trying to predict two hours ahead of time when one of our children might potentially be interested in a banana proved difficult.

So then we went back to keeping them on the counter but we’d leave them in their plastic grocery store baggie. I guess hoping that flies would be contained in the baggie. We also made sure we ate bananas before they got old and never leave half eaten ones laying around. This has not worked either. A month and a half later we’re still hanging fly strips in our kitchen and swatting them away while sitting at the computer two rooms away from the bananas.

This is insane. It’s like living in a barn and we’re cows swatting these things away with our tails. Except it’s our house and this is annoying and what on Earth. How can they all be banana related flies? Our kids have eaten bananas for years. We’ve never experienced fly infestation like this. The solution to this problem cannot be getting rid of the bananas. It can’t. Our 18 month old loves them. He loves very few fruits and vegetables. We’re not banning bananas. Of course, we’re also not resigning ourselves to living in a barn either. Our cute new Crate and Barrel dresser would be sorely out of place in a barn.

I had three fly strips hanging in the kitchen on Wednesday. My husband wanted to know what I hoped to accomplish hanging so many. I would think the answer to that is obvious. I’d like to have fewer flies everywhere. I have no idea what to do anymore. Besides complain, obviously. I’m ready to wall paper the entire house in fly paper at this point. I think looking at that would actually be better than tiny flies flitting around my head while I try to watch television. Isn’t it enough that I have a three year old using my bed as a trampoline during Big Brother? Do I need the flies on top of that?

Speaking of Big Brother, they still haven’t voted Kail out. Chick is on my nerves. Although not as much as Amber who feels the need to cry over every single thing. Even when it has nothing to do with her. Even when it’s not bad news. And she can’t just get teary eyed. She has to full on sob. It's beyond me how she functions in everyday life sobbing that much. Chick needs to be medicated.