[Editor's note: at the end of each issue of CoN we have a saying, a quote or a question. This is done in part to aid our sanity and to provide diversity all the way to the end, but also to see how many people actually read CoN all the way to the very bottom. So... in our last issue there was a simple question: is your fly open?]
Is your fly open?
Why, yes, it is. Took me three weeks to figure out how, though. First, I had to catch the damn thing. do you know how hard it is to catch a live fly? Up and down, back and forth, then it lands to rest, and you think you've got it, and zip! it flies the opposite direction you wanted. I tried everything I could think of, even the venus flytrap, which sorta worked, but then I couldn't get it opened, and the fly was digested by the trap.
Then, after losing a short battle with a can of whipped cream (I lost), I figured it out. I went to the local fast food place (yeah, bugs eat there too) and waited until after closing. I locked myself in the restroom, knowing they wouldn't bother me, they never clean them. I spent the next two hours sealing off the bathroom, and then ran the hose from the nitrous tank in my backpack under the door, and opened the valve.
After about 4 minutes I heard an odd thud, and decided to empty the tank. I opened the valve all the way, and a couple minutes later the hissing stopped. I took a deep breath, cut the seals from the door, and opened it. My quest was successful. Around the nastiest trash cans were dozens of flies. I gathered them up and put them into a salad container with clear plastic lid, and took a quick look around. the thud had me wondering what happened, and I found the night manager asleep on the floor, money scattered around him where it fell as he passed out from the nitrous. He was still alive, so I stripped him bare and laid him on his back. I took one of those ice cream cones and covered his privates (not much to cover). After taking a couple polaroids for later use, I gathered up my flies and left as he began to awaken.
Then there was the task of sorting the dead from then living. The flies were more succeptible to the gas than I had thought they would be, and most were dead. Or maybe it was the nasty lettuce that killed them. I seperated the living into little film containers with holes and peanut butter on the lids, then closed them up.
Now, I realised I didn't have any tools small enough to open them with. I had an old microscope that my parents gave to me when I was in school, but was never used for it's intended purpose. I guess this didn't qualify either, though.
I started off gluing a fly down onto a slide, but the damn thing wouldn't keep still and drowned in the Elmers. the second one, I used a very thin layer of glue, which glued the wings down nicely, until one broke as the fly attempted to escape. Now it was useless to me.
The third one I tried some sort of superglue on. Didn't quite have the expected result, the glue turned the fly into a rock hard lump. Really gross. After giving up on this method, I turned to my VCR for some mindless entertainment (I get some of my bestest inspirations this way). I was watching Independance Day, AKA ID4, and the scene where the pilot punches out the alien in the crashed ship came on. This started me thinking, and when they opened up the alien suit I figured it all out. Why these voices had been telling me to do this all along. Flies weren't really insects at all, but tiny aliens in little flying suits trying to destroy us one by one, by playing around in dirty places, then walking on our food, trying to make us sick. That's why they are here.
So, taking my cue from the movie, I made a tiny little glove, got my next fly, and punched that sucker out. Only I hit him too hard, and his little head just flew off. Oops. So I got the last fly out. Punching went better this time, only knocked him out. I decided to go back to one of the earlier methods, since he wasnt moving, and glued him down to the slide.
Once I got him in view under the microscope, I could see what he was made of. Flys aren't flys at all, but are actually little transport devices for the aliens inside! Flying Aliens! But I had to see more, which wasn't possible with my cheap little microscope.
I got a job at a med lab, where they take samples of what ails you to be looked at under a really good microscope. After about a week there, just when they were about to fire me, I grabbed the biggest microscope I could find and hauled it home.
Upon closer inspection, I could see this was no simple bug. He had antennae, but tehy were metal, and I can only assume they are meant for communicating to other aliens so organised assaults can be launched. Their legs are very complicated, with little suction cups for feet that make them look really weird. He was also covered in a protective suit, which I then procededed to attempt opening. It was resistant to all my efforts, tweezers, razor blades, even tiny explosive charges made from mathes failed to get this suit off the damn bug. I got pissed, and threw the microscope at the wall, and the slide flew out, hitting the wall, leaving a little yellow stain where it hit. I took a closer look, then set the thing back up, realising I may have figured out teh problem. I put the slide back in and looked, there it was. YES! My fly is open!
Be careful when opening flies, sometimes what comes out of them smells really bad, and carries diseases.
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