I’ve read that Elvis used to get all shook up and fire his gun inside his penthouse Vegas suite.  Nobody seems to know exactly why, but I have a theory:  He was shooting at a fly.

I understand completely.

I hate flies.  They’re disgusting disease-bearing vermin, and I know where their filthy little feet have been.  Add that to the fact that they puke on their food before sucking it up and they shit everywhere, and they’re pretty much the most revolting insect ever.

Every time a fly gets in the house I say it again, loudly:  I HATE FLIES!

By now, Hubby must be so sick of hearing those words that he’d like to swat me almost as much as he’d like to swat the fly.  Fortunately he’s managed to restrain himself (so far).

We were sitting at the table the other night when one of the little bastards buzzed by my head.  I growled and said the ubiquitous words, but I was in the middle of dinner and didn’t feel like getting up to wage war.

Instead of uttering the long-suffering “I know you hate flies” that I deserved to hear, Hubby grinned and said, “We need some anti-fly attack drones.”

In the past we’ve discussed the possibility of laser tracking and targeting systems that would zap flies out of the air, but this time Hubby stepped up with, “…and when the drone catches up to the fly, it can just suck it through the propellers:  BZZZP!”

My jaw dropped with sheer awe.  A brilliant and elegantly simple solution.  Much easier than lasers and electronics.  Except…

“But not over my dinner plate,” I objected.  “I don’t want fly bits raining down on my food.”

“Right,” he agreed.  “The kitchen and dining room would be a no-kill zone.  The drone could chase the fly out and then disintegrate it.”

We batted the idea back and forth, making refinements to the design.  (Yes, this is how dinner conversations usually go at our house.)  Meanwhile, the fly buzzed around my head, taunting me.

In the end, Hubby and I decided it was unlikely that we’d be able to build a prototype drone in time to obliterate the current fly, so I got out the Dishtowel of Doom and dealt with the problem.

For those unfamiliar with the Dishtowel of Doom:  When a dishtowel is snapped like a whip, it doesn’t even have to hit the fly – the concussion of a near miss knocks them right out of the sky.  Which is fine with me, because the only thing more disgusting than a live fly is a freshly squished fly embedded in formerly-clean cotton.

So if you ever catch me stalking through my house with a crazed gleam in my eye, fondling a dishtowel while Elvis tunes blare in the background:  Don’t worry.  I haven’t lost my mind (much); I’m only fly-hunting.

At least I’m not brandishing a handgun.  Or wearing a sequined jumpsuit.

Book 14 update:  I’m halfway through Chapter 7 and the ideas are flowing!  And I took a left turn down a rabbit hole and wrote the first pages for what might turn out to be an entirely new series… or maybe a scene from another book for Aydan & Co.  Time will tell…