I Am Bugged

I arrived home at around 8 PM on Saturday. The last leg, through Alabama and Florida, was on crowded highways. I have no idea why. Just a lot of traffic for no reason that I could discern. It was not pleasant, especially after the last gas stop where the nozzle's auto cutoff failed to work. The gas flowed over and down the side of the car. A nice mess. And the gas station, a Shell station at Exit #399 on I-75, had known about the faulty nozzle for at least a day. A note on the pump might have been useful...

So, I get home. I pull into the garage. I sit for a moment, basking in the peace and quiet of no movement. And then I begin gathering up the trash, the little items sitting on the passenger seat, put away the sunglasses, grab the coffee cup, and start transferring things from car to house. Faye greets me and then starts helping. Out come the loose clothes, the two bags full of clean and dirty clothes (and shoes). The rest of the trash is cleaned out.

And then I hear it. A buzzing. Like bees. Above my head. Inside the garage.

I look up, thinking it must be the fluorescent light above the car.

It isn't. At first, I just stare. In the odd light that fluorescent emit, the insects appear white. Bees or large flies, but white. A couple inside the light's cover, a larger number buzzing around outside of it or crawling on the outside or on the ceiling.

Weird things. I back out the car. I grab a spray bottle of some bug spray and spray the light and ceiling area around it. They don't appear to react except maybe to bathe in it happily.

I pull Faye's car out and spray the light over her space also since they are also buzzing around that light too. Then I pull both cars back in and go in the house.

The next morning, I go out to the garage and look for corpses. This is what they looked like. Please forgive the fuzziness of one of the pics. Either I moved or I snapped it when the camera had not quite focused yet. As far as I can tell, they are some kind of deer flies. The shape and eye formation seems to bear that out. But the eyes are lighter than any I could find on the internet.



I also searched the attic above the garage for some kind of nest but found nothing. Do deer flies even have nests? Are they really deer flies or some kind of albino bee? The color, in normal light, appears to be a pale green.

Ah, home sweet home.

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