The Bug Geek

I’ve invented a fun new game at work.

It’s called Gross Out Your Colleagues With Bug-related TMI.

This is how you play:

1. wait for a co-worker to notice, then comment on, the strange-looking little flies crawling on their window pane, desk, or coffee mug

2. wait for the co-worker to swat at or otherwise shoo away the strange-looking little flies as they mutter something along the lines of : “damn fruit flies”

3. smile nicely and say “those aren’t fruit flies, they’re SEWER flies”

4. wait for the pause, then your co-worker’s cautious words: “what do you mean, ‘sewer flies’?

5. share the following fun factoids:

• sewer flies (also called “drain flies”) are typically found in moist areas ladden with highly organic debris, such as sink drains, sewage treatment facilities, storm drains, dung and rotten vegetation.
• female sewer flies lay their eggs in the sludge lining drain and sewer pipes
• the larvae FEED on decaying organic material found in the pipes

6.  enjoy the look of disgust that slowly creeps over your co-worker’s face and laugh as they scamper off to find the nearest bottle of hand sanitizer.

I’m having too much fun with this game to mention what is obviously a pretty bad infestation to the building services/sanitation peeps.    Does that make me evil?

(for the Geekalicious: Sewer flies = true flies (Diptera) of the suborder Nematocera, which contains flies with largely aquatic larvae and includes the mosquitoes and crane flies.  Too cool for school with the bad-ass family name “Psychodidae”…but also a tad too fuzzy-wuzzy and cute to take them seriously).