Eating Flies

When I was in elementary school we used to play this game where we'd stretch out our arms, open our mouths, and run around the schoolyard making sounds like airplanes. The game was appropriately called "airplanes," and it was pretty goddamn awesome.

It stayed awesome, in fact, until the day a horsefly flew into my mouth and went down my throat. I spent a good 30 seconds trying to hawk it up, meanwhile it buzzed, squirmed, and had what I imagined was some kind of insect dance party inside my esophagus.

Eventually, it shot out of my mouth and flew off to live what I imagined was a charmed life.

For the remainder of the school year, however, my classmates referred to me as "that kid who ate a horsefly" rather than my first name.

Since then, I've often fantasized about going back to elementary school and pounding handfuls of flies into the mouths of all those moon-faced little brats.

"My name is Oatmeal, motherfuckers," I imagined myself saying, "Not 'the bug kid,' 'biggie bugjaws,' or "lord of the flies.'"

"OATMEAL."