David, feel free to move this to mpsim… whatever it is, but it has always bothered me why that old bat would swallow a fly.
Everything looks better in black and white – Paul Simon
Perhaps she’ll die?
(Please continue this debate to keep this thread in this forum! 
-Melin
I don’t know… but I do know that the only time I have ever swallowed (actually inhaled) a fly was while singing praise songs in church one night. Think God was trying to tell me something? LOL or maybe it was Satan trying to stop me from praising God?
Ok… NOW this thread belongs here
Oh… and the fly… I caughed it up a second later… and it flew away! Grossed out yet? I was. And no… I am NOT making this up.
Beth
If you follow the internal logic of the song, where the old lady’s motive for swallowing things is to get at the thing she previously swallowed, you have to conclude that she swallowed the fly to get the…shit!
I don’t know why the old lady swallowed some shit.
I guess she’s a twit.
I know that she swallowed a spider that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly, but I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.
I really don’t give a rat’s ass why she swallowed a fly. What gets me is the cow. She swallowed the cow to catch the goat, but cattle aren’t really known for their goat-catching abilities.
The trouble with Sir Launcelot is by the time he comes riding up, you’ve already married King Arthur.
Both flies were obviously sent by the Prince of Darkness, aka Beelzebub, which means “Lord of the Flies.” The old lady had much less faith, and the devil accomplished what he was trying to do: first possess her, then kill her and take her soul to hell!
Oh, by the way, I can get you a really good deal on some Florida swamp land.
Furthermore, it’s quite obvious that the entire epithet is nothing more than radical, commie-tree-hugging-vegetarian-left-wing propaganda striking at the very heart of a good, wholesome, meat-eating America.
Why is it “so absurd” that “she swallowed a bird”? Isn’t it our God-given, flag-waving, inalienable American right to have a ‘chicken in every pot’???
You’ll notice, however, that she never even took a bite of the “other white meat” her country’s serving up these days. Even batty old fly-ladies have their standards!
Move it to MPSIMS? Are you crazy?
This has Great Debates written all over it.
She swallowed it on a dare - possibly a double-dog dare - from her Even Older Creepy Brother.
I believe the real issue here is exactly what reasoning she had behind the injesting of this insect.
Frankly, I don’t know WHY she swallowed a fly.
Yer pal,
Satan
One of the earlier, less successful White House interns?
There is, of course, a very logical point behind this story. When one ingests a falsehood, and makes it part of oneself, one is then compelled, by a sense of self-pride, to ingest greater and greater falsehoods, until finally the whole scheme of things cannot be held up any more, and collapses, with dire consequences, as in the last verse:
Now how was that for finding hidden meaning in the totally mundane and trivial? 
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Ok, ok. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to be consistent and toss this to MPSIMS. I do have to question Inertia, though, on why it was even posted here in Great Debates if you included a suggestion to move it to MPSIMS?!
David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator
[Moderator Hat: Eaten by the old lady before she died]