Conversation after breakfast

G. You are not throwing out that wine bottle are you? There’s still a good half inch left in the bottom.

B. No. I’m not throwing it out. I am taking it up the back garden.

G. What for? Have you turned into an after breakfast drinker?

B. No. It’s for the fruit flies.

G. Do fruit flies like red? I think they’d prefer chardonnay.

B. Don’t joke. It’s a well-known strategy. Apparently they fly in, attracted by the grog….

G. ….as you would be….

B. ….and then they are too drunk to get out, so they die.

G. Mmmm. Sounds a bit like the time I saw a lady sprinkling Johnson’s Baby Powder in a ring round her caravan legs to keep the ants off.

B. Did it work?

G. Who knows? We broke camp next morning before she was awake.

B. I agree most home-made bug-catching ideas are a bit hit and miss. Like garlic concoctions. Though they say vacuuming stink bugs off a lemon tree works like a charm.

G. Ugh. Imagine the bag full of them crawling around.

B. Unlike the nice clean demise the fruit flies’ll have in my bottle. See you later.

February 2019