I long ago gave up trying to keep nature out of this old house.  Correction: I long ago gave up trying to completely keep out the bugs and other critters. I do my best to block entry points, but there’s always a nook or a cranny in a 19th Century house that can be found by heat, food or shelter-seeking critters.

You don’t see them in action, but it seems there are house flies constantly circling the building on surveillance missions. Leave open a door for 10 seconds, perhaps while waiting for a slow-walking dog to make his or her way back inside, and you hear the insect buzz past your head. Inevitably, the bug will find its way to the bedroom to perform touch-and-goes in the dark using your face as the runway.

The living room is another popular destination for flies that successfully make the transition from outside to inside life. Here, they tend to gravitate to the blue glow of the television. I can’t count the dozens of shows and movies diminished by a fly walking across the screen, often treading rudely on the faces of Hollywood icons and ruining the fragile suspension of reality that makes movie-watching worthwhile.

On rare occasions, the presence of a fly in the TV room somehow adds to the entertainment. If a fly happens to land on the nose of a Boston Red Sox batter during a game against the Yankees, that’s worth a smile. If it bothers Derek Jeter, out comes the swatter.

However, nothing’s come close to tonight’s situation in terms of humorous irony.

The fly that decided to grace the screen during my viewing of 1986′s “The Fly” remake, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, was one of those really, really big fellas. The word “ginormous” is terribly overused these days, but it nevertheless is a great way to describe these flies. They’re the C5 Galaxies of the fly world – huge and combersome and loud.

Yes, that dot on Jeff's right chest is a fly watching The Fly

I’ve had, in this place, bigger ginormous flies than the one that joined me to watch the movie. But my companion was still a lot bigger than your average housefly. He remained on the screen throughout the entire film, possibly growing ever more in love with Goldblum as the actor slowly morphed from a scientist with insect-like characteristics to a disgusting scientist-sized insect that most definitely needed to have its head blown to bits by the shotgun-toting Davis at the movie’s end.

My problem, right now, is that I don’t know what happened to the big bug after I turned off the TV. I can only assume it headed straight upstairs to the bedroom so it can provide the perfect 2 a.m. soundtrack to my “The Fly” induced nightmares.