Actually, You Catch More Flies with Vinegar

You have probably heard the aphorism "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar!" It's an old saying, who knows where it came from? Your guess is as good as mine. Who really knows, but I am going to contest that this is one of the most bogus claims in history, right up there with "You'll go blind!" Flies don't like sweetness, they like rotten things. Is this a metaphor? I'm not even sure. 

I tend to let my bananas rot away on the counter on occasion. I maintain that it is because I am waiting to make banana bread. Sometimes that's the case, I always have the best of intentions, like this time, but I don't always get to it before the fruit flies do. The little bastards are persistent and prolific; if you're not motivated their little wormy babies will soon be squiggling around on your oozing 'nanas. Gross. I know. Once they come around, fruit flies can be hard to get rid of. Oregano, I have heard before. Another excellent way to trap the annoying fruit flies, if you don't mind outsmarting and destroying the poor sorry sap suckers, is to use exactly what this axiom suggests does not work well...vinegar. 

This last bunch of bananas I had made it a long time but two of them ended up drawing in fruit flies. That always tends to happen when I wait until they start oozing. There were a ton of them, but not for long. "Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?" The best way I have learned to get rid of fruit flies is to pour a little Apple Cider Vinegar into a glass, cup, what have you. Add some dish soap, Dawn, the liquid stuff...and voila! It's a fly trap. 

Watch them hover, sit on the rim, and then ultimately explore until they die. They are attracted to the vinegar  and then the soap traps them. You will soon have a disgusting cup full of dead flies, suspended in colorful liquid. By the end of the day, all of the fruit flies were gone. It's like some kind of sorcery...no, more like science. It works great! So, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, huh? Bullshit. Vinegar will catch you more flies...maybe not figuratively, but literally! Try it!