By now, everyone knows that a fly landed on Mike Pence’s head during the only Vice Presidential Debate of 2020. Twitter had something of a field day, if “field day” means making the same poop joke 1,000 times.
Right after the debate, we interviewed the fly that landed on the VP’s head. We also reached out to another key person in this intensely important national story.
URBO: We know you’re busy. Thanks for taking the time.
GUY WHO TOLD MIKE PENCE ABOUT THE FLY: No problem. I’ve…I’ve got a lot of free time now.
URBO: So, you told Mike Pence about the fly. Can you walk us through that experience?
GUY: Yeah, sure. Well, I…look, can we first say that it was a good debate, considering everything? People didn’t yell at each other, there were only a few moderate interruptions…it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t even really very interesting. I was waiting for someone to, like, pee on stage or something, but it was just a bunch of talking.
URBO: Totally. It was pretty uneventful. Which is why the fly —
GUY: Yes, I know. Look, I knew as soon as I saw the thing — it was going to be a big story. [Sighs]
URBO: And for the sake of clarity, what role do you have in the Trump-Pence campaign?
GUY: No role whatsoever.
URBO: You were fired for telling him about the fly?
GUY: No. I never worked with the campaign. Look, I’m just a guy. I ended up backstage accidentally. I have no idea how it happened. I wasn’t even invited here tonight. I’ve been drunk since, like, 6:30. I’ve been really sick, too. There was just, like, no security whatsoever.
URBO: Why were you there?
GUY: Your guess is as good as mine. I was actually on my way back from the store. My wife likes these little cupcake things — they’re, like, just balls of cupcake stuff, they’re really gross, covered in icing. Pure sugar.
URBO: Oh, cake pops.
GUY: What did you call them?
URBO: Cake pops. They’re everywhere.
GUY: Really? They’re really bad. They’re just, like, pure sugar. Other people eat these things?
URBO: Yeah, it’s a huge Starbucks thing.
GUY: Why not just, like, eat a cupcake?
URBO: People think that they’re not such a bad thing because they’re so small.
GUY: Well, my wife eats like three at a time.
URBO: Yeah, most people do. They’re kind of expensive, though.
GUY: Huh, weird.
URBO: People even make them at home. I think they were a bigger thing in 2010 or so.
GUY: Okay.
[Long silence]
URBO: So, what..uh, what did you say to the Vice President?
GUY: I tried to give the old compliment sandwich. “Hey, Mr. Pence, you did a fantastic job at that debate. You definitely said some words with your mouth that were human words. Your skin was radiant and your eyes shone with the vigor of a Boy Scout on his first camping trip with his best friend Roger. And you had a fly on your head for a solid 10 minutes. Your suit is definitely the type of clothes that a person would wear when saying serious things.”
URBO: How did he react?
GUY: He started screaming, just crying out with pure frustration. I think he was speaking Latin. He demanded a German thesaurus, kept saying that they had a word for this situation, which they did, Kopffliegendebatte. He demanded a sandal and started using it to hit his knees. Also, his eye filled with blood.
URBO: Actually, the eye thing happened before the debate.
GUY: Oh. Well, I think it happened to Biden, too, so no big deal, I guess.
URBO: Why didn’t someone in the campaign tell him?
GUY: They seemed frightened. Honestly, I’ve never seen people that scared.
URBO: Did they think Pence would fire them?
GUY: No, Pence was chill, he kept giving people small gift baskets and warning them not to “go too hard on the graham crackers.” I think they were all scared of the fly.
That thing didn’t just leave. It hung around for a long time talking about how mad it was that there wasn’t a question about “EVH,” whatever that means. It wasn’t wearing a mask and it kept asking people to listen to its Soundcloud. Nobody wanted to draw its attention. Someone said “buzz off” at one point, and the fly just started going off about how that was offensive.
URBO: What made you speak up? Why’d you tell the VP?
GUY: Well, the dude had a fly on his head. I don’t care what you think politically, if a guy has a fly on his head, you tell him about it. I was surprised that Kamala didn’t just, you know, brush it off. I’d seriously think about that if I was a voter.
URBO: Why aren’t you voting?
GUY: Convicted felon. I stole some Chapstick. I also killed, like, a dozen people. I’m really surprised they let me in here.
URBO: No kidding. Any other thoughts?
GUY: Yeah, actually. Look, we’ve all got important decisions to make this election season. I can’t tell you what’s right. Some people are listening to their consciences, some people are being a little more pragmatic. But we’ve got to trust our guts. We all know what’s right and what isn’t. And there’s a threat out there that we all know about, even if we want to ignore it. It’s not going away, and it has the potential to make us sick. It has the potential to —
URBO: This is about cake pops, isn’t it?
GUY: No comment. Can I have, like, $5?
