Comments on: The Model Mormon Fly-Trap

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:40:49 +0000

There are differences between the sexes . . .

Truer words were never spoken.

By: bfwebster

bfwebster — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:39:17 +0000

#24: Mom held many inquisitions into the alarming number of dead flies in the strainer.

Yeah, I’ll bet she did. And she probably had a pretty good idea that some active force was at work; it’s just that being female, it probably never occurred to her that someone (you two) would deliberately drown flies in milk that they would later drink themselves.

There are differences between the sexes . . .

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:32:58 +0000

#24 – Wow, that brings back memories – and I had to fight the urge to use a pun there, Ardis.

You’re welcome.

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:13:44 +0000

What a delightful thread! It has brought back a rush of HBO and fly memories growing up on a farm. Flies first, HBO later:

When my dad first had my brother and me milk the family cow we were too young to strip all four teats by ourselves, so he put me on one side and my brother on the other and gave us two teats each. With all the flies swirling around sneaking down the inside of the bucket it didn’t take long for my brother to invent a competition. Whoever squirted and drowned the most flies in the milk won (not as easy as it sounds, mind you–it took expert aim and significant skill. The rules dictated that you not only had to squirt the fly into the milk, but then had to drown it with additional laser-precision shots before you could move on to the next fly).

The flies were, of course captured by the strainer back at the house. Mom held many inquisitions into the alarming number of dead flies in the strainer. We never told about our competition, but we could have simply called it our own version of the Mormon-Fly Trap.

Got milk?

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:02:54 +0000

Ok, this is too much. I haven’t seen one of these mormon-fly-trap-doo-hickies, but it sounds interesting. I wonder if they put them in the outhouses. We moved to Manti in the early 70′s and next door, still standing, was the outhouse. It was four-seater. I had never seen a four-seater before.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:53:21 +0000

Having a whole mess of flies around wasn’t all bad.

Every Sunday afternoon in the 1930s the Snowflake Ward sacrament meeting began at 2:00 p.m. and ended at 4:00 p.m. None of the speakers were ever asked ahead of time–so every sermon was extemporaneous. One young man who attended that ward said that one of the few things that made that two-hour-long meeting bearable was the challenge of catching the flies that flew in through the open windows.

No telling what he did for entertainment during the winter.

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:05:30 +0000

#18 – Holy Crap!

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:04:14 +0000

Looking at the other blogs today, I’d have to say that HBO of all varieties certainly does seem to attract flies in abundance.

Oh, and really good HBO, Andrew.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:48:24 +0000

Niblet nomination, anyone?

By: Andrew Ainsworth

Andrew Ainsworth — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:42:58 +0000

My grandfather told me about the days when, before the WOW became mandatory, he and his friends would get HBO-faced on the weekends and go around kicking over the neighbors’ fly traps. He said by far the most effective HBO to use in the fly traps was horse HBO, but bull HBO was a close second. He said one Saturday night one of his buddies, a real HBO-for-brains who didn’t know HBO from Shine-ola, kicked a fly trap so hard that his foot went right through the wooden box and got stuck in a steaming pile of HBO. He said the owner of the fly trap was awoken by the noise and came running out with a shotgun. When the teen saw him coming, he was so scared he literally HBO’d his pants.