Extermination of a Species

So what’s the deal with flies? I mean – what’s their function exactly? 

Just to give you some background – I hate flies.  I know, I know – we all hate flies.  But I really hate them.  I may even take a small amount of sadistic pleaure in ridding them from the planet (nothing clinical -but definetly not normal). 

Come summer, my fly swatter and my water bottle are my constant companions.  I keep the swatter near because I literally cannot have a fly in the house.  Once I’ve become cognizant of one, I become the hunter.  I stalk. 

I move slowly (so not to disturb the “nemesis”), and I creep my way to it’s resting spot.  I raise my swatter in the air (all the while calculating the speed and force with which I should employ in order to sucessfully kill this pest), and in one swoop I bring my hand down and… miss spectacularily. 

Nemesis takes off, and I stand perfectly still – only shifting my eyes to track the its movements – waiting for it to land in another opportune spot.  It goes on for hours.  I’m crippled until the fly is dead.  I can’t think, I can’t sit still (for fear that it will come buzzing by my ear – THE WORST OFFENCE), my whole day is in shambles. 

But now I’ve become philosophical about this…You really out to know your enemy before going into battle.  So here we are – what is a flies occupation? 

From what I remember of 8th grade biology, within the animal kingdom there’s this heirarchy, and every mammal has a job – somehow centered around population control (of course, I could be making this up…I’m not the foremost expert)  But, assuming this to be true, where does the fly fit. 

I Googled it, and what I learned was, to say the least, disturbing (learn more here).  Let me sum things up for you: They have no real function except to annoy and make us sick. As a matter of fact, they’ve been known to kill thousands of people. 

I know that scientist have better things to study than the extermination of insects, but – for the sake of quality of life (okay – well really just the quality of my life), we need to effectively rid ourselves of these pests (that was me on a soapbox). 

Oh!  And that leads me to another thing – what’s the deal with the fly swatter? That things useless…