Wouldn't hurt a fly

My mother is one of those "at one with the universe" types who bows to ants and ladybugs and knows the different varieties of garden pests (oh--look at that horn on the caterpillar; that means. . . . ). I, on the other hand, am not really at peace with the universe. It kinda bugs me most of the time.

But I try. I really do. So I've been sitting here for ten minutes in my study trying to calmly accept the presence of a large juicy buzzing housefly that keeps smacking its forehead against my window, attempting, I suppose, to get next door, where they have a satellite dish roughly the diameter of one of Jupiter's medium-sized moons and presumably are pulling in all the telenovelas from Brazil as we speak. I even turned off the desk lamp lest Mr. Fly burn himself on the hot bulb. I really did that. I sat here in the dusk, unable to work, so that a fly could live to bug the bejeezus out of me a little longer.

I remember once when I was teaching composition at UCDavis, we were working with an essay by Albert Schweitzer--the famous piece about not disturbing the ants that were marching all over his desk. One of my (many) god-fearin' Central Valley types calmly wrote an essay chastizing Schweitzer for worrying about the ants in the first place. Something about "G-D" taking care of things as He should, so to worry even for a second is akin to denying the Passion.

These are things I worry about, here in the semi-darkness, as Mr Fly makes his 4000th futile attempt to break through double-plated glass.

My two-year-old is much more comfortable confronting the dilemmas of creation than I am. His instant response to the question: And who do you think made all this? The trees, the ants, Daddy, that mango?

Grandma. And she really did a good job.

So there you have it. My mom, God. We could do a lot worse.

Guess it's time to take that fly outside.

There's a massive thunderstorm on the way, but that's his problem.