“Leave the front door wide open, all the time,” God told Mel in a dream. Furthermore, God added, put three dishes filled with raw hamburger in every room in the house. Add more hamburger when the dishes became empty.

A very strange dream, Mel had thought, but who was he to question a command from God? He opened the front door wide and put the dishes in every room. The first day, hundreds of flies flew in. Each day, hundreds more followed. His wife Hazel was as religious as Mel, but her complaints increased each week. So one day, Mel drove to a nearby Wal-Mart. He bought three dozen fly swatters and returned home. He pounded small nails into each wall of each room, and hung a fly swatter on each nail. “There, that ought to do it,” he told his wife, handing her a swatter.

“What good is this? The front door is still wide open!” she yelled at him. He said that was okay; it was God’s will. They knew that He worked in mysterious ways. Maybe He was going to reward them when this was all over.

More and more flies moved into their south Florida house. When the kids opened their mouths to put food inside, flies flew into their mouths. After a while, the kids got used to eating the crunchy flies with their food.