I’m sorry, but watching a fly camp out on Mike Pence’s perfectly groomed white hair for two minutes and three seconds made sitting through the whole vice presidential debate totally worthwhile.

Talk about fly in the ointment – or in the hair gel.

According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, “fly in the ointment” means “a minor irritation that spoils the success or enjoyment of something.”

However, in this case, the fly animated the event and apparently blew up social media. I loved the response by Joe Biden featuring of photo of himself with a fly swatter in his hand. It is nice to see that he has a sense of humor. From the Trump camp, there was a deafening silence on Twitter, presumably because they have no sense of humor. For them it was likely a spoiler.

How much more presidential could Kamala Harris have been, who clearly was able to see the fly and resisted the temptation to break down in guffaws as I was doing the whole time. I’m laughing as I type this.

I think I saw her do a subtle double-take when she first noticed the fly, and there was a very little smile on her face. What on earth was going through her mind? Could she even hear what the vice president was saying? I couldn’t.

In fact, during the dozen or so times that Pence went over his allotted time, all I heard was Susan Page saying, “Your time is up, Mr. Vice President,” over and over again.

Did you hear what he said when that happened? I didn’t. But he did succeed in cutting into Harris’s time by several minutes. His agenda was clear. His method was only slightly less annoying than Trump’s constant interruptions during his first debate with Biden.

The most memorable moment for Kamala was when Pence was interrupting her and she looked at him with her steely glare and said, “I’m talking!” My mother’s irritated face replaced Kamala’s at that moment and I was rocked back against my recliner with mouth clenched, feeling completely berated because I’d rudely interrupted her.

Now does anybody really think she’s incapable of being commander in chief?

Yes, there was plenty of substance during this debate, as well as plenty of misleading and false statements, mostly by Pence but some by Harris as well. There are plenty of places to read the fact-checkers, like the New York Times. I’d say Pence actually answered the questions posed by Page on only one or two occasions. Harris at least usually answered the direct question, but then strayed into a canned speech, which both of the candidates did throughout the evening.

The only true winner of the debate was the fly, and when it successfully flew away I hoped beyond hope that it did not catch COVID-19 from being in such close proximity to someone who, according to the CDC guidelines, should have been in quarantine. But the rules do not apply to the Trump-Pence campaign.

(Susannah Colt lives in Whitefield. She can be reached at susannahbcolt@gmail.com.)