Two Flies are better than one

 It was a horrible day at work, but at least I am not a Beijing washroom attendant. The latter, Chinese serfs with dubious fringe benefits, have been given a new directive- no more than two flies per stall. These are ironic rules for the potty police, who are already understaffed and overworked, considering that more people line up to give an offering at a porcelain protrusion in a Beijing restroom than cue up for a “Pin the Tail on the Zuckerberg” game at a “Stock Implosion Party.” Counting flies is serious business, and a whole lot of money should be thrown at the problem so that the communist government can justify a five-year plan.

But how…how…does one obey such a directive, considering five year plans may not include all the utilities for the plan in the first year or more?  Do attendants get fly swatters, portable fly-paper houses, or big-fat bug zappers? Or, do they mount this offensive while straddling white plumbing equipment? It seems to me that a policy requiring stall inspection would necessitate occupiers counting total fly populations while vacating their bowels, unless they were vacating the said stall areas to allow washroom attendants to do systematic checks.

Which leads me to the next logical question: if there is now a two fly policy, what was the former policy? In a country where babies are regulated, where ghost cities lie in wait for future generations, and where “reality” is manipulated by the government,  the regulation of flies in a metropolitan smog jungle restroom might actually seem logical. So, what was the former count? Surely there was a system in place that allowed for a particular number of flies per stall. I believe that number was chosen by a party leader who read a Fortune cookie prediction containing the lucky number. This makes perfect sense because these are the same people who have regulated the installation of strangely worded signs in fractured English throughout China as a part of the “Communist Party Comic Relief Program” for all English-speaking tourists. It’s just a shame  that they have to have a spy program so ubiquitous. It’s no wonder they are trying to eliminate the image of the Chinese “fly on the wall…”