ROGERS — I knew there was a problem when I found myself sneaking into my own kitchen armed with a spray bottle of window cleaner.

The kitchen was cold because of the open window and still dark in the early morning. I could hear the teenage daughter moving around downstairs, but I was the first person to enter the kitchen that cool morning.

I took careful aim with my squirt bottle and flipped on the light.

When I was through, the body count was only four.

I had hoped to surprise an entire platoon when I formulated my battle plan, but evidently gnats don’t get up early any more than my husband does. I disposed of the four tiny bodies and sprayed some Windex onto the counter for good measure. Then I poured my first cup of coffee of the day. But before I coulddrink it, I had to fish out the stray coffee grounds floating in my cup. They looked too much like the enemy.

The war against gnats has only been going on for a few days, but somehow it feels much longer. It feels like the battle has been going on for weeks.

It all started with a banana. I blame the teenager for this. She’s a runner and needs a healthy breakfast every day, so instead of the old standby of cold cereal for breakfast, I’ve been buying fruit and baking muffins. But she never seems to eat them in a timely manner.

There’salways a couple of moldy muffins to throw away and she never eats the last banana.

The problem is there’s usually just one banana left.

You need three brown bananas to make banana nut muffins. One brown banana is pretty useless, so last week I left the one brown banana in the basket on the counter.

Deep down inside, I think I was hoping she would feel guilty about that lone banana, although I understand that teenagers don’t ever feel guilt about things like that.

I think all teenagers, even the most responsible and mature of the lot, secretly believe that food just appears before them when they want to eat. They open the cabinet and “Bam,” a box of granola bars is there for an after school snack. Open the refrigerator and there’s a gallon of fresh cold milk, justwaiting for chocolate syrup.

Teenagers are not going to think about their parents rushing to the grocery store in between appointments to make sure the milk is available or lugging in bag after bag of groceries on rainy afternoons. I know that.

So I left the brownish banana on the counter and out of nowhere the gnats appeared. At first it was one or two, but we didn’t act fast enough. The gnats started multiplying and soon we couldn’t put down a plate in the kitchen without it becoming a landing field. We had to declare war on the gnats.

First stop, the Internet, of course. I Googled “killing fruit flies” and came up with a list of weapons. That’s why my counter has been littered with little bowls of cider vinegar for the last week. The vinegar attracts the insects,and the drops of dishwashing liquid I secretly add, kills them. I got the Windex idea from the Internet too, but it doesn’t work as well as I’d like. I’d like see a gnat burst into flames each time I scored a direct hit, but they generally just flutter away.

Luckily the Windex slows them down so I can squish them with my dish rag. I just have to remember to warn the family not to use the dishrag for dishes until the war is over.

The open window wasn’t mentioned on the Internet.

It was just a gut feeling that if we got the kitchen really cold, the bugs would give up and die. It works as well as anything else which means, not very well.

It’s also important to make sure there’s no food source for the enemy in the kitchen and that’s proved problematic. I threw awaythe brown banana and informed the teenager that we would not be buying any fruit that can’t be refrigerated, but there always seems to be a stray glass or two in the sink and that’s enough.

Then I opened the pantry door and found another whole legion eating a soft onion on the second shelf.

The onions have been cleaned out and repositioned in the garage, but the army of gnats don’t seem to mind.

The war continues. Now I have to rush to the grocery store in between appointments to buy more Windex and cider vinegar. The ban on bananas remains in effect.

But the end is in sight. I hope that if we can hold our own until the temperature drops, we may win the war.

Reporter Lynn Atkins can be contacted by e-mail at lynna@nwanews.com.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/14/2009

Comments

To report abuse or misuse of this area please hit the "Suggest Removal" link in the comment to alert our online managers.

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.