Step 1: Eat a banana.
Step 2: Leave half of it lying around in your room.
Step 2: Wait.

To quote a modified version of famous line from a (presumably) famous movie I’ve never watched: “If you leave it, they will come.”

Because the steps to breeding fruit flies are so simple and self-explanatory, I will now take the remainder of this time to answer some letters I’ve received from my readers:

Dear Chanel,

I want more than just a couple fruit flies. What should I do?

- LonelyGirl

Dear LonelyGirl,

Follow this simple mathematical formula:

# of fruit flies = length of time fruit is left out

I followed this formula by leaving an open ziplock bag of fruit somewhere in my room for several days and ended up with approximately 80,000 fruit flies. Trust the formula; it really works.

Good luck!
Chanel

Dear Chanel,

I made lunch, ate half of it and forgot the rest in my bedroom. When I came home, I had several hundred fruit flies in my room. It is now nearing nightfall and I need to go to bed. Where will they all sleep?

- Worried

Dear Worried,

Not to worry. When I was breeding fruit flies in my bedroom, I found that I did not have to worry about where they would sleep at night as they found themselves quite comfortable perched everywhere from the paintings on my walls to the clothing hanging in my closet. Just make sure you sleep with your mouth closed.

With love,
Chanel

Dear Chanel,

My husband is not as excited about breeding fruit flies in our bedroom as I am. How can I convince him this is a good idea?

- ThinkingOfTwo

Dear ThinkingOfTwo,

I’m sorry your husband does not share your enthusiasm. While fruit fly breeding is primarily a single girl activity, you can still do it while married. Simply explain to him that relationships are all about compromise and that this is something you really want to do.

If all else fails, remember that “fruit fly breeding” can be used interchangeably with “science project”. I used this line on my mother when I was breeding fruit flies in my bedroom and it worked marvelously: Not only was I able to breed a legion of fruit flies in my own bedroom, but they soon started spreading to the rest of the house. Who would have guessed fruit flies enjoy soap bars so much?

Best of luck,
Chanel

P.S. Here’s a photo I took of two happy fruit flies chilling out on my desk:

Happy breeding!

Further proof college is awesome: I got to hold a cockroach at school!

I even have a card of certification to prove my participation in this monumental event.

Before I agreed to hold said cockroach, I made The Keeper of The Cockroaches sign a blood pact with me that basically stated that the minute I started freaking out, she’d take the cockroach away from me. If you ever plan on handling insects, by the way, NEVER SKIP THIS STEP.

Holding an insect is not like holding your neighborhood cat or chicken. If at any point during the holding experience you decide you no longer wish to have this cat or chicken in your arms, you simply release and they are no longer on your person.

(Incidentally, I speak from experience here: I was once was peer-pressured into holding a chicken by a group of ten year olds. I couldn’t tell you who was more relieved once that experience was over; the chicken or The Chicken.)

Insects, on the other hand, are hard to shake. Literally. Of course, being about a million times bigger and stronger than your average insect does give you some advantages, but short of flicking said insect off of your appendage(s), they generally won’t leave you (no matter how much you shake, scream and squirm) unless they feel it is safer to be off you than on you.

Trust me, I know this stuff. Until you have a maggot fall out of the sky, down your shirt and into your bra, you are not an expert on the level of difficulty involved in getting an insect off of you in a timely manner. But, that’s a story for another time.

Today’s lesson: Cockroaches! Not so awful when they are smaller than the size of your hand and voluntarily handled in a controlled situation!

For those of you who have me on Facebook or Twitter, you’re likely already aware of this, but for those of you who haven’t yet heard: I started college this fall. AND IT IS AWESOME.

Although this isn’t my first time taking college level courses, it is my first time in a physical college – five days at week, having to be at school by 8 am. Test! Quizzes! $100 textbooks! Waking up when it’s still dark out! Making new friends! Taking notes on my laptop in a lecture hall! Looking like a supreme hipster with my macbook, scarf, skinny jeans and moccasins! (Mostly joking about that last one. I think.)

College has also made me realize that, 1) I love learning, and 2) I love telling other people what I’m learning, which now makes me a huge know-it-all. Not in the snooty, “I am just so smart” way, but in the “OMG I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT ALL THE FASCINATING THINGS I’M LEARNING, LET ME SHARE THEM WITH YOU!” way. Observe:

Girl: “I’m so nervous about the midterm tomorrow.”
Me: “Eat some carbs! They make you calm because they boost serotonin levels in the brain!”

Guy: “So we were driving along the highway when suddenly I feel the car hydroplaning…”
Me: “PLEASE LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HYDROGEN BONDS AND SURFACE TENSION!”

Guy: “If his IQ is more than 55, I’d assume he found a method…”
Me: “Well, ACTUALLY! The IQ level that separates the mentally retarded from the mentally capable is 70!”

Thankfully, my friends find this more endearing (and occasionally interesting) than they do irritating—or so they say. And besides getting the intense satisfaction that comes when you share something with someone else that is too awesome to keep to yourself, I’ve also found it a great way to apply and retain what I’m learning.

In addition to handing out unsolicited psychology tidbits like candy, I also keep a couple in my pocket to be used as icebreakers when needed…

Me: “HI! Did you know the average tips of strip club lap dancers double on their days near ovulation?”

Me: “Did you know that a boy’s chance of being homosexual increases by one-third for each older maternal brother he has? It’s called the fraternal birth order effect and it is SO! INTERESTING!”

(Amazingly, I still have friends.)

My psychology textbook, by the way, wins on so many levels. Not only does it quote Malcolm Gladwell (my all-time favorite author) and Daniel Gilbert (another favorite), but it also quotes ALBUS DUMBLEDORE. Yes, you read that right: Albus Dumbledore is now being quoted in muggle Universities. The world is awesome! And so is college!