I had to part ways with my Crockpot this summer.
#DidYouKnow that the lifespan of a fruit fly is 40 to 50 days? ME. EITHER!!!
Other fun facts:
- Females lay up to 500 eggs in a lifetime.
- In warm conditions, a fruit fly can mature from egg to adult in seven days.
And #DidYouKnow that they don’t just apparate into your home? They’ll hitch a ride on some innocuous piece of fruit that you’ve already carefully inspected in the produce department for brown spots or damage, only they’re microscopically burrowed into the skins just waiting for that moment to burst forth into the world (read: your kitchen), crawl all over everything, and buzz your nose while you’re eating. Heaven forbid you put that seemingly innocuous piece of fruit into your refrigerator. You will find yourself on a daily basis with fruit fly carcasses requiring you to disassemble the produce section to remove them.
SO, all that being said, I no longer have a Crockpot. One day…some day…I don’t recall exactly when, but I clearly recall doing it. I had the bright idea that I would toss a small bag of potatoes into the crockpot on the bottom shelf of the bakers rack. In my kitchen, potatoes don’t have a real “place” and so the bags tend to be moved from spot to spot. The table. The counter. The fruit bowl if there’s no fruit. At any rate, I tossed them into the Crockpot and promptly forgot about them.
Fast forward all of spring and into summer, and focus on the suspicious bunch of bananas in the fruit bowl. First it was two or three fruit flies. No big deal, but the bananas gotta go. Then it was seven or eight. Wait… THEN, it was twenty-five or thirty! In random places in the house. The upstairs bathroom. The guest bedroom. On the lampshade on my nightstand. I was standing at the glass patio doors killing twenty at a time. I was bleaching the sink. Scrubbing the counters. Cleaning the corners. And once I was satisfied that I had killed about forty of them and there didn’t seem to be any strays floating around, I finally sat myself down somewhere.
Next morning… My kitchen is sparkling and bleachy clean. I reach for the kitchen faucet and as the stream of water splashes into the sink, a brand new swarm of fruit flies erupts from the drain. I get my hands all soapy and start swatting at them because they stick to the soap on your hands and you can just rinse them off without smashing them. After much sud slinging and soapy slap prints, I was satisfied that they had been dealt with. I did, however, consult with the internet only to find that they breed in the slime coat inside your drain. Next step, foaming cleanser into the garbage disposal and rinse well with boiling water. And, acting upon the advice of the internet, I set up some of those apple cider vinegar traps to catch any strays.
Next day…repeat faucet, splashing water, new swarm. WTH?? There were EVEN MORE fruit flies, and notta one of ’em was in the apple cider vinegar trap. *epic fail*
So, again soapy hands, sud slinging, slap prints. Thirty or forty fruit flies later, the air had cleared to the point that I could no longer see them floating through the rays of sunlight.
This foolishness went on for a little over TWO WEEKS! I could not figure it out.
Then, one day, as I was randomly passing through the kitchen, my eyes fell upon the Crockpot and I remembered! I took a closer look and THERE THEY WERE! It was an entire fruit fly community. A new breed of colonizers in my kitchen. There were eggs, and larvae, and fat adults living, swimming, and reproducing in a putrid brown pool of decomposing potato liquid! It was disgusting! It was horrifying! It was flamethrower worthy! How in the entirety of bug zapping could I have overlooked this ground zero invasion??? *dry heave*
Careful, so as not to displace the lid, I managed to maneuver the Crockpot out the back door and onto the patio table. *dry heave* I grabbed a couple of trash bags and managed to get it completely enclosed without lifting the lid or spilling any of its contents. *dry heave* That was the last time I laid eyes on my Crockpot. My husband eventually put it out for the trash.
I don’t miss it yet, I guess because I’m still associating it with the cesspool fruit fly incubator that it had become. So, while I’m waiting for Crockpot cooking weather to arrive, I’m just gonna stock up on my boxed tissues and hunker down for this year’s stinkbug onslaught.
The Plain & Fancy 