Death by Pita

The few times I visited southern California before moving here, it struck me how few flying bugs there were. Coming from Packerland, we're used to sharing our homes with ants, wasps, bees, spiders, mosquitoes, dragonflies and endless numbers of flies. But not down here, here seemed like paradise. Leaving the patio door completely open extended the living room, brought in the fresh air, and welcomed rather than fought nature.

Now that I'm here I realize there are at least two flies in California. They are freeloaders and constant irritants to my poor old dog. She is doing her best trying to catch them in her mouth but its been a rather pathetic and sad exercise.  I felt really bad for her, so I started going after them myself, although not with my mouth. We both looked ridiculous. I would swat at them with a pillow until I started breaking things. She would take over and snap her floppy old jowls in the air, then look at me as if to apologize. At her age, she shouldn't have to apologize. Since I threw all the Wisconsin fly swatters away thinking I wouldn't need them anymore, I had to go makeshift. The obvious choice was the plastic handled pancake flipper, mistakenly called the spatula back home. The noise and wreckage caused by the slamming metal brought this idea to a quick end. Besides, this was just too easy for the flies, who looped around in front of us, wearing hideous grins of superiority. I don't know how they know, but flies can tell what you're thinking if you're out to kill them. My arm barely moves and off they go, rolling around in the air holding their laughing stomachs with their six little spindly legs.

I stand defeated at the counter and see a plastic bagged piece of  bread laying there. It's just the right size--bigger than a fly. One Pita, a yardstick and four feet of duct tape later, I've created the perfect killing machine. Pita on a stick. Normally I would be one to try to coax insects out of the house rather than squish them, but they were taking their toll on my now rather OCD-ish old dog. She was losing it. She'd snap her jaws together, then look at me, snap, look, snap, look, snap, look. Unless we sat in complete darkness, she was on call. I had to end the humiliation. So how did my death by Pita experiment turn out?
I taped the two dead California flies to the sliding patio door so any of their little friends with big ideas could see the fate awaiting them. 

We come from hunting country.