The Fly and The Wine - When Bugs Kamikaze & Other Superpowers

Christian, like me, has some "superpowers." One of his is his attraction to bugs. I don't mean he is interested in checking out every single spider and beetle (Although he does stop quite often when there is a particularly interesting specimen on the sidewalk!). Rather, bugs love bugging Christian.

I have never seen someone have more problems with insects than Christian does.

On at least two separate occasions I've seen a bug dive-bomb his eye, land, crawl under his lid and proceed to explore the area. This, understandably, causes Christian to stop whatever he is doing, bend slightly at the waist, wave his arms around and yell, "GAH! There's a bug in my eyeball!!"

Usually, the bugs die or get caught in his lashes, rather than marching around on the whites of his eyes. Often times on hikes, clouds of insects will hover around Christian's head and completely bypass my own. Flies almost always settle on Christian's skin, while they avoid mine entirely. It is a strange phenomenon, which we can only guess has to do with his pheromones, poor guy.

Last night, as usual, a fly was attracted to Christian. We were in a nice restaurant off Stockdale in Bakersfield, and had purchased a bottle of delicious Petite Sirah. Throughout the course of our meal, the fly would requently buzz around Christian's head, and because of my proximity, it made several passes around my plate. Eventually, much to Christian's disappointment, it became attracted to his wine glass, and then, it happened. In a flash, the fly flew headlong into Christian's half-full wine glass. This caused Christian to say flatly, "Well, that's disappointing." We watched as the fly swam around the wine, refusing to die. We decided to help it out by using a spoon to fish the thing out - not thinking we could have been comped if we had left it there. After the fly was out, it cleaned itself for about thirty seconds straight, and then, in another flash - flew away.

Apparently some flies enjoy a robust red wine from time to time. This one in particular had good enough genes to last for quite some time before being fished out. It was a strange thing to see it swimming so strongly, get out, and fly away like nothing had happened. I guess even flies have superpowers.