Dropping Like Flies

I was on the plane to Las Vegas when I heard a woman in the adjacent seat describe her family as "dropping like flies." I hear that expression all the time but just the way she said it in a know-it-all way made me think--what the hell does that expression mean?

Flies are hard to kill, unless you're the karate kid. You try to swat them and they fly away, unscathed and emboldened by the experience. And you definitely never see a group of flies buzzing together...and then dropping dead one by one right before your eyes.

So what did she mean? What this woman REALLY meant by that expression is that members of her family buzzed around a plate in her kitchen, she shooed them away, and then found her uncle dead on her window sill two weeks later.

"Yep I found Uncle Bill just curled up there behind the blinds. That wasn't as bad as Cousin Gary though.....yeah, eaten by a toad."