They’re not fruit flies. If I had to guess, I’d say they were a gnat creature, perhaps a smaller, grayer cousin to the fruit fly.
And they do fly, in kind of a bumpy, jerky way, not purposefully, like a house fly.
But boy oh boy, do they get around. All over my house.
I don’t know where they came from or how to get rid of them. (I don’t like pesticides.)
And although I don’t know these bugs’ names, I’ve learned a lot about them.
I know that if I’m drinking a cup of coffee or a glass of water or wine, I’d better look closely before I return for that next sip, because invariably I’ll find a few of those gnats floating in my beverage.
I know they seem attracted to the white bathtub and kitchen-sink porcelain, because that’s where I find many of them, dead.
I know that with them in the house, it’s a lost cause to try to read in bed anymore. They rush the lamp where they swirl around the light bulb and tickle my nose and are such a huge nuisance that I always give up and turn out the light, just to escape them.
But mainly, I know that those gnats like the night life, they like to boogie. And they’re social creatures. Many a time, in the late, late hours of night or the early,early hours before dawn, hoards of them would keep me company as I typed, as I am now.
The tiny gnat bugs flit about my face and fingers so much that every so often I stop and flail and swat at the air, like an insane woman, trying to chase away eye-floaters.
I noticed when I watered my Christmas cactus recently that a flock (well, what would you call them) of those miniature gnat bugs flew out from the foliage. (See exhibit A, below.)
That’s when if first occurred to me that the plant was the culprit, that what I had here was a giant gnat hotel.
Oh, how I loved its beautiful, delicate pink flowers. Oh, how I admired its dark green leaves, which are jointed, like long flattened, Martian fingers.
Oh, how smart I felt many months ago when I combined two two flowering cacti and potted them in one huge container for a single dramatic cactus effect.
Two, two, two cacti in one.
The effect was so stunning that I pushed the pot over near my desk, so I could admire the new blossoms each day.
Then the bugs arrived. They weren’t gross, like cockroaches, skittering around in the dark. They weren’t true pests, like an invasion of ants, swarming the sugar bowl. They weren’t catastrophic, like pantry moths, that overtook my cupboards a few years ago and ruined hundreds of dollars’ worth of dry foods, herbs and spices.
But these gnat bugs were annoying beyond belief. So on a hunch that the flies originated in the cactus plant, I enlisted Bruce’s help so we could move the plant to the screened porch, where it’s freezing-ass cold at night. Sure enough, within a couple of days, the gnat population decreased dramatically inside the house.
I’ll deal with the plant later, like spring, and hope it survives the winter. By then, surely the gnats will be gone. In the meantime, merry Christmas cactus, to me.
