what's buggin me about south korea

too many koreans! haha! just kidding, the koreans are great. if anything i want more of them. no, you see, the title of this blog post wasn't simply meant to invoke curiosity in the minds of my readers ("i can't wait to find out what it is! i'm going to read this right now!"), rather, it was also a clever pun as to what is actually the source of my frustration. my enemy has a name and it is drosophila melanogaster. or, as it's more commonly known: the fruit fly.


fruit flies are one of the most commonly used insects in the study of biology, genetics and physiology because they have short life spans, breed quickly, and lay more eggs than china has people. for these same reasons they are the worst house pest ever. i feel like my tiny little hole in the korean wall is especially suited for their reproduction - it's tiny so they can cover the entire area quickly, it's full of condensation for mysterious reasons i've yet to figure out (my jeans never get dry. i have to take an iron to them to finish them off and then they smell like stale water afterwards), and the lid to my food waste is an easy-to-penetrate swing top.

i guess it's my own fault. unaware of the looming fruit fly menace, i left some rotting fruit in my food waste bin maybe a few days too long. when i went to fetch the bag to put it in (the appropriate green colored) container outside, imagine my shock and horror to find the inside crawling with little uninvited guests that immediately shot out at me for invading their feeding/breeding grounds. i spent the rest of the night in bloody combat trying to rid my room of every last one of them. and when i did i was so happy. i thought i could rest. i thought i was done with it. lesson learned.

no! at the slightest sign of weakness they strike back with a vengeance! it's like they're storming the beaches of normandy, wave after wave, throwing themselves at me. and for what? so they can poop out a bunch of babies before their 10 day life span ends? 10 days! what is the point of anything that lives 10 days with the sole purpose of breeding?

if there is a silver lining to this whole experience, and there usually always is, it's that i've become extremely proficient at using this blue inflatable tube to eliminate the never-ending hordes of fruit fries. imagine, if you will, me pacing about the room with striking similarity to the lightsaber kid of youtube fame, swinging and stabbing and thrusting a blue tube through the air at invisible pests. it is as sad as it sounds.

anyways, for anyone else who has or is worried about having the same problem, here's an easy and effective fix to the fruit fry problem (god, i sound like some sort of nazi conspirator when i put it like that):

1) drink a bottle of beer/wine/coke - something with a long neck and small opening

2) put about an inch of coke/apple juice/vinegar/some kind of sweet liquid into the bottle

3) add about 3 drops of dish soap to break up the surface tension

4) leave the bottle in a "problem area"

5) wait a few days and then look inside the bottle, which should now be a mass grave for fruit flies.

6) repeat as necessary