Blast from the Past: Flies and Milk

When I was 17 years old I had the opportunity to spend the summer in France. 

One hungry morning I sat down to breakfast with the host mom I was staying with. To make me feel at home, they had bought some delicious chocolate cereal.

I poured a heaping bowl and eyed it wolfishly. I got from the cupboard a liter of milk (as the milk in France is ultrapasteurized, making it unnecessary to refrigerate) and dumped it in. 

As it cascaded out of the carton, there was a loud and distinct "PLOP" in my milk.

Fishing in my bowl, I discovered the biggest, hairiest fly to have ever lived. This creature could have eaten a butterfly without a problem. And it was lying there in my bowl of delicious cereal.

The host mom, rather stern, saw my predicament and merely scolded me on. As the culture demands, food is not to be wasted and I was expected to eat my generous serving.

I picked the beast out, placing it next to my bowl. I can still picture it - swamped in its own little puddle of ultrapasteurized milk. I painstakingly ate that giant bowl of cereal with the room-temperature milk, eying the fly the entire time.

Then the impossible happened about two-thirds of the way through the bowl:

     The fly got up, shook off, and flew away. 

Needless to say I did not finish the rest of my cereal that morning.