So a businessman is dining in a ritzy restaurant and orders the Apple Cinema Display as a first course. After the waiter brings him his 22 inches of LCD goodness, the businessman soon notices that there's a fly in his display. Appalled and disgusted, the man cries out, "Waiter, there's a fly in my Cinema Display!" The waiter runs over, and in a conspiratorial whisper, replies, "Please, sir-- don't shout, or everybody will want one." Ba-dum-ching! Thank you, thank you... You're too kind. We'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitstaff!

But seriously, folks, you never know what you're going to find in your Apple merchandise these days. Nary a week ago we told you about a customer who found a blank Zip disk rattling around inside his new Quicksilver Power Mac G4 (one without a Zip drive, no less), and now faithful viewer Daniel is upping the ante by pointing out a peculiar discussion thread in Apple's own AppleCare forums. A few months ago, one customer posted to ask how he could remove the "dead fly inside the transparent plastic casing" of his Cinema Display. Apparently said fly corpse was lodged between the power and brightness buttons and was freaking out his clients.

But wait, there's more! Several weeks later, another customer claimed that he was suffering from the exact same scenario: dead fly, Cinema Display, transparent plastic, same exact spot between the buttons. Since neither customer implies that he received his Cinema Display with a fly corpse already lodged within, we can safely rule out the possibility that these are prototype Novelty Cinema Displays, sort of like those fake ice cubes with the dead bugs inside. For some reason, it appears that flies may be somehow attracted to the Cinema Display (hey, who isn't?), enter the casing through the ventilation slots, work their way into the beckoning space between the buttons, and then get trapped there and die. (But at least they appear to die happy.)

So far there's been no word from Apple on how to exhume the flies from their transparent graves, though we can't help wondering whether or not this may be just the marketing hook Apple's been looking for to help move its high-end displays: "The Apple Cinema Display-- sure, it costs $2499, but it's 22 inches diagonally, it's got a widescreen aspect ratio, and best of all, it doubles as a pest control mechanism! Buy two: one for the den, and another for the porch on those hot, insect-ridden evenings." We think we've got a winner, people!