Oh for a human fly-swatter! That is, for some sort of a swatter that would obliterate the human fly.  
The most prominent trait of a fly is his ability and disposition to bother. He is essential, concentrated botheraciousness.
 
He is the arch intruder. He is the type of the unwelcome. His business is to make you quit what you are doing and attend to him.
 
He makes the busy cook cease her bread-making to shoo him away. He disturbs the sleeper to brush him off. He is president and chairman of the executive committee of the amalgamated association of all pesterers, irritators, and nuisances.
 
102
The human fly is the male or female of the genus homo who is like the housefly.
 
Some children are flies. They are so ill bred and undisciplined that they perpetually annoy their mother until her nerves are frazzled, and make life miserable for any guests that may be in the house. It may be well to be kind and thoughtful toward the little darlings, but the first lesson a child should be taught is to govern himself as not to be a bother.
 
There are respectful, considerate, and unobtrusive children alas—too few!
 
There are fly wives. Realizing their own pettiness they gain their revenge by systematically irritating the husband. They make a weapon of their weakness. They soon acquire the art of pestering, nipping, and buzzing, keep the man in a perpetual temper, and blame him for it. You can’t talk to 103 them. Nothing can cure them but an eleven-foot swatter. And these are not for sale.
 
Some men are just as bad. Married to a superior woman such a man is inwardly galled by his own conscious inferiority. So he bedevils her in ways indirect. He enjoys seeing her in a state of suppressed indignation. He keeps her on edge. His persecution is all the more unbearable because it is the unconscious expression of his fly nature. Also for him there is no cure but to wait till he lights some time and s............