The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies

The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies finds it hard to go about his life.

Obviously his first arduous task each day is to give himself a really, really good scrub, and inspect the crevices where flies may have laid eggs on his body in the night, like under his arms, under his nails and in his eyes. He hardly ever finds any most days. He once thought he was suffering from really bad dandruff, so he was embarrassed to go to the barbers, but when he got there the barber said that instead of dandruff he had maggots. That was the last time he fell for that one. He doesn't like maggots either, but at least they can't fly. Like flies.

He uses a mosquito net over his bed at night, of course. He had to go to the Exotic Shop to buy it. He wouldn't buy one from Amazon, as it is notoriously fly-infested. He asked the man in the Exotic Shop, who goes by the name “Jungle Ken” whether the net is designed only for mosquitoes and if flies were clever enough to get through the net. If so, would they tell the mosquitoes how to do it in exchange for a small fee of mosquito honey (human blood).

Jungle Ken just replied “£5.99” because that's how much the net cost. The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies gave him a Bank of England five pound note and a pound coin. Jungle Ken did not give The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies his penny change, even though it said “£0.01” on the change bit of the receipt (which Jungle Ken threw away). The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies stood there for a bit, then left. The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies let Jungle Ken away with what he did that time, because Jungle Ken looked like he was suffering badly from what he calls “Jungle Fever”, although The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies noted that Jungle Ken only gets Jungle Fever the day after he drinks his six bottles of “Jungle Juice” (Malibu mixed with Um Bongo).

The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies likes it when it rains because that means that all the flies are drowning somewhere.

The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies has a love-hate relationship with spiders. He loves it when they capture and eat the flies for dinner, but hates it when the spiders decline his “Thank You” gifts of fishnet stockings. The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies offers them to the spiders because they would be more durable than their own webs, but they seem okay with using their Spider Milk to make webs. The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies has fishnet stockings covered in jam hanging in his house to catch some flies of his own. He doesn't eat the flies. He eats the leftover jam though.

The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies likes Jeff Goldblum. He understands that Jeff Goldblum probably needed the money, rather than wanting to be an actual fly in “The Fly”. Nobody would want that. Not even Jeff Goldblum.

The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies doesn't like anything about flies, he doesn't like the sound they make when checking his ears for leftovers, he doesn't like how they leave the windows and doors open and he certainly doesn't like when they land on his food, eat a bit of it and then vomit it back up, and then keep eating. Only The Man Who Is Afraid of Flies is allowed to do that to his food.