Lesson Ten: Fly By Night

        

            Musca domestica.  A common household fly. 

Musca, as his friends called him, hung precariously from the wall just above Jon’s desk.  For the past three days he had been watching Jon, cleaning up the crumbs from his lunches, following him, plotting his demise.  Although scientists tell us that insects and other animals can’t think, this fly begged to differ.  He saw what he wanted, knew what he would do and planned accordingly.  Today was his day.

            Jon was oblivious to this scheming, bug-eyed insect, although unbeknownst to him, he had swatted at it several times over the past few days.  Musca had been trying out a few maneuvers in preparation for today.  Jon had just been annoyed. 

            Jon’s plans for today were to clean the carpets in the math wing.  It was spring break and he thought he’d get a few extras done before summer.  Jon loaded up his carpet cleaning cart with the necessary supplies and tools and jauntily made his way to the first math room.  Opening the door, Jon’s eyes scanned the room and took in his previous day’s work; that of stacking and moving all the furniture to the tiled portion of the room.  Today all he had to do was walk in, pre-spray the carpet, give it appropriate dwell time while he mixed his cleaning solution and connect the parts of his extractor.  Ten minutes later, Jon was ready.

            Musca hung back taking in the scene.  He watched through his compound eyes as a thousand Jon’s meticulously worked his extraction wand to and fro across the carpet fibers.  He watched sweat begin to form on Jon’s head.  He watched Jon get closer and closer to the antique lamp that the teacher had on the corner of her desk.  Then he struck!

            As Jon begun to pull the extraction wand toward him, the hose, which was dragging behind, moved backward in sync with the motion of the wand.  At the same moment that Jon was within inches of knocking the antique lamp on the floor, the tiny fly started harassing him.  First it landed on his head.  Jon stopped in mid stroke and swatted at the fly.  The fly’s maneuverability was no match for Jon’s molasses-like reflexes.  Then he landed on the side of Jon’s cheek.  Jon stopped again, his hose an inch from the lamp and he slapped his cheek.  A tiny shiver of laughter raced through Musca’s body and then he was gone.  Jon backed up a hair more and the fly flew into Jon’s nose.  The sudden irritation caused Jon to react violently and quickly.  It also made him knock the lamp off the desk.  At the instant his hose bumped the lamp; Jon knew what he’d done.  As if swimming in thick syrup, Jon turned his head ever so slowly and watched in horror and the lamp tumbled through space and hit the floor with a thud!  The lamp was intact.  Amazed and relieved, Jon picked it up and set it carefully on the counter away from his work area.

            Musca’s tiny body shivering with laughter now shivered with rage.  He so wanted to see Jon break the lamp.  He was so hoping to irritate Jon mercilessly.  But it wasn’t to be.  The fly circled the room several times watching and waiting.  Jon continued cleaning, oblivious to the surveillance overhead.  Eventually, he finished the room.  Carefully moving his cleaning equipment next door, Jon began work on math room two.  Musca sat quietly on the counter watching. 

            Starting on the far side of the room, Jon began to extract the carpet.  As he leaned forward to reach underneath a desk which was too heavy to move, he realized he didn’t have quite enough hose.  Instead of walking across the room and moving the extractor, Jon decided to give the hose a good pull using it as a “rope” to move his extractor closer.  A couple of tugs and the machine glided into the room.  Jon smiled, proud of himself for saving a few seconds.  Jon worked feverishly for another 15 minutes until the room was done. 

            On to room number three, Jon thought.  Things were going so smoothly today.  Jon shut off his machine, pulled all the hose through the door and walked through a huge squishy bog which used to be the hallway carpet.  Stopping, Jon looked down.  Unbeknownst to him, when he’d pulled the hose to move the extractor, the waste water drainage hose had been pulled from the machine.   The whole time Jon had been extracting, the hose had been draining water into the hallway.  Even with this bad turn of events, Jon didn’t panic.  He had his extractor.  He had the wand in hand.  He simply reconnected the drainage hose, turned on the extractor and sucked up the water.  No harm done.  Jon then began work on rooms four and five.

            After another hour of work, Jon decided to take a break.  He shut off his machine, carefully laid the hose on the floor and went outside to enjoy a few minutes of sunshine.  After breathing in some fresh air and sucking up some rays, Jon returned to work.  He finished two more classrooms and then cleaned up his equipment for the day.  After pushing his cleaning cart of supplies and other carpet paraphernalia back to his office, Jon returned to retrieve the extractor.  When he rounded the corner, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  Before him lay a vast ocean of carpet waves.  The extractor was hidden behind the first one.  Several others were spread out sporadically down the hall.  Jon realized that his mishap had over-wet the carpet and now it was bubbling up from too much moisture.  Jon was disappointed that his day had now taken a turn for the worse.  Moving the extractor back to his office, Jon returned with three high speed dryers.  He set them up in strategic places to maximize the drying.  Hopefully, the carpet would dry out quickly due to a process of air moving over the surface of the carpet rapidly.  This was known as Bernoulli’s law.  He could only wait and see.

            All the while, the fly had been observing this turn of events.  When Jon left to go back to his office, so did the fly.  He followed at a safe distance and altitude.  When Jon sat down to think, the fly landed on his hand.  Jon swatted at it.  It moved with lightning- like efficiency and was gone before Jon’s hand came within a foot of his other hand.  A loud slap reaffirmed that he had missed.  Jon rubbed his hand.  Again, the fly landed, this time on his arm.  Another slap and another red mark appeared.  The fly did this several more times until Jon began to look a bit like a Native American.  Jon was thoroughly frustrated now.  Not only had his carpet cleaning turned bad, but now this stupid fly was drying him nuts.  Jon went to his supply shelf and picked up a can of Raid.

            Walking quietly back into the room, Jon thought he might be able to outsmart and outthink the fly.  His eyes carefully scanned the room like two miniature radar sets.  His ears were tuned to detect any high pitched frequency the fly’s wings might emanate.  His hand was steady.  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement.  On the wall, to his left and about two feet above him.  The fly scurried about in tiny circles. 

            He must be confused, Jon thought.  He doesn’t know where I went.  Now he’ll pay. 

            With the steady, slow movement of a minute hand on a clock, Jon’s arm swung around toward the fly, his finger ready on the sprayer.  Stopping, Jon locked his arm in place.  The fly continued creating circles on the wall.  Jon’s finger twitched and then with one lightning movement, he pushed down on the sprayer. 

            A fog instantly formed in front of Jon and then his eyes began to burn as if red pepper had been poured liberally into them.  Tears streamed down his face and the fly flew off unscathed.  Jon realized he had not checked to see which direction the spray top had been aimed.  Now he knew.  Quickly he ran to the sink and spent the next 10 minutes flushing his eyes.  Once the burning subsided, Jon dried them and looked in the mirror.  He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, his eyes red and puffy, his face glistening with moisture.  A buzzing in his ear brought him back to his senses. 

            Jon turned quickly as the fly exited through the door and down the hall.  Jon stood there momentarily and then decided to go check on his dryers.  Forget the stupid fly, he thought.  When he reached the hall, he was pleased to see that some of the wrinkles had gone down.  Several others were still present.  Jon unplugged one of the air movers and repositioned it outside the door to math classroom three.  He plugged it in just inside the door.  When he turned on the switch, he heard a “pop” and all the lights and computers in the room went off.  The breaker had tripped.  The circuit breaker box was located right across from this classroom in a maintenance room.  Jon opened the door, opened the circuit breaker box and found the red flagged breaker which had tripped.  He reached up and reset it.  It immediately tripped again.  He tried again.  Same result.  The third time, Jon reset it and held it tight so it wouldn’t trip.  The blower began to run and the lights came on.  Jon could feel the resistance in the breaker as he held it.  He knew it would trip again.  Before he could let go and move the dryer to another outlet, he watched as smoke started to curl out of the dryer.  Letting go of the breaker, it tripped and Jon ran to the dryer.  He unplugged it and grabbed it to take it outside, but not before a poof of flame rolled up the side of it and enveloped his head.  Jon jumped back, his face black, his hair singed and his eyebrows gone.  The smoke dissipated and curled up to the smoke detector.  Jon smiled.  He had the system in test, so even if it went off, the fire department wouldn’t arrive to see his mess.  Jon picked up the dryer and set it outside to cool and air out.  And to Jon’s surprise, the fire alarm didn’t activate.

            Jon moved one of the two remaining dryers to a different position.  Tiny flecks of dust swirled through the air and the carpet began to undulate like a flag on a windy day.  Jon surveyed the scene and was satisfied that things would dry out nicely by the next day.  He turned to walk back to his office when the fly buzzed his ear.  Whipping his head around to see where the fly was, Jon walked right into the doorframe of the men’s restroom.  A thud with the same resonance as that of a coconut falling from a tree and hitting the ground reverberated off of the bathroom walls.  Jon stumbled backwards and fell on his butt.  Stars floated in front of his eyes and he had to rest a few minutes before things cleared up.  Jon’s fingers caressed his head.  A knot the size of an egg protruded from his forehead just over his right eye.  Jon had morphed into a scorched-blackened-eyebrowless-egghead.  A bit of red still shown under the layer of soot adding to his transformation. 

            Musca tried again.  Flying in at a steep angle, he aimed for Jon’s other ear.  Jon turned just in time to be hit head-on in the lip as the fly attempted to pirouette in midair.  This time the fly sailed sideways into the hallway wall.  A tiny concussion of sound like a pea bouncing off of a window briefly filled the air.  The fly fell to the floor spinning.  With one quick move, Jon stomped on it.  He stood triumphant staring at his foot.  Musca flew out from under the high point of his shoe, that small void between the front of his shoe and the heel.  Zipping with tremendous speed and agility, the fly disappeared around the corner.  Jon stood stunned.

            Frustrated, hurting and ready to end his shift, Jon trudged back to his office.  Jon couldn’t believe the turn of events his day had taken.  A simple carpet cleaning job gone awry, mainly because of a stupid fly.  Would his life at work never end normally?  Would he never go through a day without something backfiring?  It would seem not. 

            Jon poured himself a cup of coffee, sat down and relaxed before his day was done.  He leaned back and closed his eyes.  Musca sat precariously on the wall, watching, waiting.  When he saw Jon’s eyes close, he hovered briefly and then flew down and landed on the edge of Jon’s coffee cup.  He sat opposite Jon and stared.  Jon took another sip, his eyes still shut.  Musca held on and rode the cup up and down again.  Jon pondered his day.  At least his shift was about over.  He stretched, yawned and took another sip as he opened his eyes.  A tiny fly sat staring at him with a million compound lens reflecting the light of the room in a rainbow of colors.  Jon’s boiling point was reached almost instantly.  Without thinking, Jon reached up and swatted the fly.  That in turn sent the rest of his coffee out of the cup and onto his shirt and pants.  Jumping up, Jon dropped his cup.  It shattered.  Cursing, Jon scanned the room looking for “the fly.”  It was gone.  He spent the next 10 minutes cleaning up after which he shut off the lights and went home. 

            Jon finally got to bed around 10:30 p.m.  He was showered, warm, dry and tired.  He reached over and shut off the light.  His eyelids began to fall.  Then, in the distance, the whir of wings, wings of something small and annoying.  Jon cracked open one eye.  The sound got louder.  Jon waited.  And then a loud whir as Musca landed on his ear.  Jon swatted and missed.  The surround sound effect of Musca flying from one side of his head to the other filled Jon’s ears.  It was going to be a long night.  Musca giggled.