The Flies (and the Neighs) Have It

Have you ever experienced a heightened awareness of your surroundings as a result of being in a stressful, perhaps semi-dangerous situation? Me too. There does seem to be something about peril that gets some of us on our toes.

Consider Hurricane Rita. As loyal readers know, when Hurricane Rita was headed Houston way, traffic leaving Houston was badly snarled. And the storm was expected to come ashore to the south and west of Houston (this would have been bad). And we were in our house, closely, diligently, and consciously monitoring the situation.

It was in that spirit of alertness that we finally made our escape, and given the circumstances, we retained that alertness through the balance of our trip and until we settled in at my father's house. And so it is that I credit Hurricane Rita for helping me reach an understanding regarding this collection of observations:

• There are very, very few houseflies in Houston.
• There are considerably more houseflies in and around San Antonio than Houston.
• There are very, very few cows in Houston.
• There are considerably more cows in and around San Antonio.

CONCLUSIONS:

Where there are cows, there will be houseflies. And were there aren't cows, there won't be nearly as many houseflies. I should've been able to figure this out without the aid of anxiety-induced alertness. Iowa and Nebraska have heaps of cows (and pigs) and flies. There is an apropos ancient wisdom, after all: "they'll be on that like flies on shit."

Leading me to expand (or refine, I'm not sure which) my conclusion: where there are cows and pigs there will be shit lying around outside, and where there is shit lying around outside there will be houseflies.