BUG OUT

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were caught so what could they do?
Said the fly, “Let us flee.”
Said the flea, “Let us fly.”
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

What’s so funny about this? This is an old limerick that I actually remember from when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I had a “Big Book of Jokes” that I’d read in bed, especially when I was sick with the flu. When you think about it, the two bugs in the limerick might be suffering from the same ailment, except their flu is spelled f-l-u-e. What’s fun rather than funny about this limerick is saying it aloud and trying to keep it all straight because it’s filled with homophones and homonyms too. Then of course there’s all the alliteration which for some reason seems to be pleasing to the palate to say. So we’ve got two bugs stuck in a flue, which is a duct or pipe for smoke and waste gases produced by a fire, a gas heater, a chimney or some other fuel-burning device. The word is also a homophone of flu, the disease, short for inf