Lesson #16 - A Moth Can Kill You If It Really Wants To

Welcome to "Transient Tuesdays"...I am glad that you decided to stop by! Have a seat, kick up your feet and enjoy this week's post from The Cribbed. One of my last posts - Lesson #14 - was inspired by one of her previous blog posts. I asked The Cribbed to be a guest blogger and what follows is her fight-to-the-death with the most ballsy moth I've ever heard of!!

My history with moths is a long and sordid one. You see, I am not a fan of bugs in general, however; moths are a sure stand out in my heebie jeebies category. The main reason for this is their sheer flutteriness. Are they going over here? Are they swooping down there? Oh wait, now they are two hundred feet away. For the love of God, now they are dangerously close to my hair... it's a nightmare. Their very unpredictability is what makes them so frightening.

As recently as last week, I suffered a horrific moth attack. Our current home does not have central air, so we leave our windows open. A lot. Which allows the flies (we call it Nightmare on Fly Street) and the moths to enter our home at will. Normally a moth will find a good place on the ceiling, stay in the exact same spot for 2-3 days and eventually disappear. I don't know where they go, I don't know what they do, and I don't care. As long as they aren't in my bedroom when I go to sleep, I am fine.

One moth, however, had something to prove. He threw all caution to the wind. He was willing to live life to the fullest, no matter what the cost. He was a moth maverick. A fluttery rebel. I knew I was in for the moth fight of my LIFE when I found him fluttering around my television screen at eleven o'clock at night. 'You flutter where you want moth, but right in front of my tv screen, late at night --- thems fightin' flutters. That was IT. This moth HAD TO DIE. Moth death squad ... engaged.

I get out of bed, my narrowed eyes scanning the room for ANYTHING to kill it with. Ahhh, this room is useless in a moth attack! Hardback novels, earrings, sewing box, fleece pajamas bottoms, hangers, scrapbook organizer. Useless. (Now why my shoes never flashed into my head as an option, I don't know. Call it initial battlefield panic).

I'm in the line of fire, unarmed. So I call in reinforcements. Ballerina, the Bug Killing Wonderpup. My 80 lbs lab is chasing this moth all over my bedroom, over the bed, in the corner, up in the air, but it's crafty, this moth. It won't be stopped by a mere dog. Not even by a vicious chocolate killing machine.

At some point I found a flimsy piece of paper, and I enter the chase. It's here, it's there, it's up to the right, to the left, it's all over the place. Then it made its boldest move yet.

IT FLEW UNDER MY BED.

Now there is no way I am sleeping with a moth under my bed. NO-WAY-ON-GOD'S-GREEN-EARTH. There is also no way this Fatty McFatterson is able to squeeze under the bed, to get to the moth, to kill it. I'm yelling for my husband, I'm yelling for Jesus, I'm yelling for Oprah. I'm yelling for someone, anyone to help me annihilate this thing.

But no one comes. The dog had given up. I'm all alone. It's just me. And the moth. With extreme vigor, I start waving my arms under the bed, making giant sweeps, trying to shake up the moth. Flush him out of his under-the-bed lair. Nothing. He was not going to budge. And either was I.

Long story even longer, it took me a good 45 minutes to get that stupid moth out from under the bed, and then it was overkill. I beat that thing until there wasn't a scrap of antennae left. If I could've hoisted its bloody corpse over my head and run through the streets screaming, I would have.

I think; however, that the moth's family may have come back to seek revenge for his untimely death. Just yesterday, my baby daughter was holding something blackish brown in her tiny baby hands, which I thought was just a piece of mulch. Then it started to FLUTTER ...

Want to read something entertaining for a change? Go to www.speakingfromthecrib.com. You won't be disappointed. Or maybe you will be. I guess that all really depends on what you thought of me in the first place.