It's been a long, hot, dry summer in the Midwest...and until recently, flies, mosquitos, noseeums, and those little black flies that always make me think of filth have been in very, very short supply....UNTIL the past week or so.

Saturday morning, sitting on the EL, heading into town for the Gay Men's Chorus one day rehearsal/retreat...on a train about 2/3 full of folks...some early arrivals at Midway Airport, some heading to work, and some, just along for the ride....and a large...and I'm talking "look at it closely to make sure it's not Jeff Goldblum" large fly WOULD NOT leave me alone. I had showered, my clothes were clean, I was not wearing any scent, and my hair stuff is an odorless paste. Yet with a car full of the great unwashed...some of whom appeared actually to be unwashed...said fly had affection for only yours truly.

Saturday afternoon, in the Northwestern University Law School auditorium where our rehearsal was under way...a small, very small, housefly begins to flit and fly around my head...lighting on my hair, my music folder, my (shudder) ear...and no amount of disuassion will cause him/her to leave me alone and go bother some other bent bass or buff baritone. I regret to say (or do I?) that I committed insecticide that afternoon.

Sunday afternoon, walking from the house to the garage, similarly clean and unaromatically adorned, I saunter past our extraordinarily productive tomato plants, and an army of bugs of many varieties departs the fecund moistness of the undergrowth to chase me into the garage, and ultimately, into my car...where one had to be expelled under threat of death...

Today, in a nice, though hardly upscale, local eatery, my lunch was served...and within minutes one of those small black bugs with no visible wings that resembles a flea, but which, as noted above, I always equate with filth, is trying desperately to get me to share a meager portion of my repast with its disgusting self...the frantic efforts to keep it at bay, involving hands, napkins, and the current "restaurant book" I'm reading will no doubt appear soon on some low rent comedy home video program...Imagine my surprise when after all that, it committed suicide in my ice water...I'm sure it's friends were shocked and when asked said, "he always seemed happy enough and he loved eating off of that chubby minister's plate...It's so sad...and those 20,000 kids it has left behind!"

But I digress...

What I want to know is...what minor functionary in the Heavenly Host have I offended so as to justify my affliction by this plague of winged marauders? What toxic residue of mexican food and low-fat Quaker Oats Breakfast Bars is seeping from my skin to attract these buzzing buddies of rot and putresence? What did I do wrong and how can I undo it?

Help!