How Not To Awaken the Bug Phobic

Thank you for all the well wishes. I'm mucusy but getting better.


So, shall we step into the way-back machine? Don't bring a lunch. It's just a little trip, say back to the Friday before last.

Ah. Friday. How I love you. I don't work Fridays and the house is usually somewhat clean. Plus, the real weekend stretches out like a dream.

Or a nightmare.

Our scene: The Master bedroom, 5:07 am. Charles, all rumply, plops down on his 1/2 of the bed, waking our heroine, who is quite rumply and rather bleary, as well. Yes, people often say we look alike. I'm guessing this is why.

Charles: "I have to share what happened last night!"

Me: "Mmmmm. Yeah. I'm awake. Mmmmmm. I'm listening."

Charles: "Molly got me up at 2 am to go to the bathroom. So, I let her out and just as she was coming back in..... This THING flew in the house!"

dramatic pause...

Me: "Mmmmm. What sort of thing?"

Charles: "This huge flying bug! About THIS big!!!" And he demonstrates with his hands, measuring the air between them by about 8".

Me: (completely awake) "What? What sort of bug?" (Grabbing for my glasses, the better to see the approaching demon.)

Charles: "I think it was a moth. It was all hairy. And huge. Really huge."

Me: "You're shitting me. Moths aren't 8" big. I was asleep, you poop."

Charles: "Well, this one is."

Me: "IS??"

Charles: "Well, yes. It flew up into the loft. Molly and I feared for our lives. We didn't go up. Kitty did, though. She raced up after it. I stayed on the couch and Molly leaped on top of me."

Me: "And it's now......?"

Charles: "Um. Still up there, I think. Although maybe Kitty ate it. She's unusually spunky this morning."

Mad-Kitty now leaps on the bed, and is, indeed quite spunky. Horrifyingly spunky.

Me: "Ew. What's worse? Mothra loose or Mothra recently chomped with much relish by my cat?" To Mad-Kitty: "I'm not kissing you, today."

20 minutes later, Charles is out of the house and I am alone with either a possible mutant moth or a horrifying cat. Yup, just me and the kids and the wussy dog. He has also informed me that the THING is mottled gray, which would blend perfectly with the carpet.

I throw on my long, heavy robe, thinking the terry cloth might provide some protection, should the creature still be up there. Gingerly, I creep up the stairs to the small loft above the living room, MY room, the loft where the house plants and my most favorite books live and the kitty lurks and terrorizes the plants, because the dog is never allowed up and the kids are only allowed up with permission.

I creep all about and find nothing. No large mutant winged bug and no large mutant bits of wings, legs or feelers.

I descend and shower, resolving to think for the best, that the beast is in the belly of the cat. Or, better yet, a waking dream, spawned by having to get up at 2 am to let the damn dog out.

We go about our day without further incident.

Later that evening, as I curl up with Charles in the Big Chair, he informs me that he's done his manly duty and dispatched The Bug. Just a few minutes ago, while I was putting Sara to bed.

Oh dear. And where was it? Oh, yeah. Up in the loft. And how did he, erm, slay it?

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do. I've had a beer. I'm now brave. Tell me. With a rolled up magazine?"

"Um. No. He would have laughed at the rolled up magazine as a weapon, taken it from my hands and beaten me about the head with it. No. You know that glass vase? Yeah. I don't think it left too big a mark on the wall."

"Are you sure it's dead?"

"Would you like me to re-create the sound it made?"

I passed on that.

A bit later, Charles headed off to bed. And I? Well, I may be bug phobic, but I am a blogger, and that glass of beer was still warm in my veins. I grabbed my camera and headed back up the stairs. And snapped a picture:



You'll notice that I even included my thumb in the shot for scale. You'll also notice that, while it's a goodly size, it's not quite 8". Maybe 3":



And now, you'll notice that it's looking a bit worse for the wear? And is now on the floor?



Seems Mad-Kitty thought, if she couldn't be a lion, being a vulture was almost as good. The kids noticed a commotion going on in the loft the next morning and I ran up, thinking she was attacking a plant. Nope. She'd managed to first, sniff out the moth, then extract it from the back of the bookcase, then start to munch on it.

I shooed her away, went to get a stiff piece of something to put under it (And my camera, of course. If I'm disposing of the carcass, I'm getting credit, dammit.) and shooed her away, again, scooted it onto the stiff paper, shot pictures, tried (and mostly failed) to scoop up the now-present bits of wings, legs and feelers that were strewn about the carpet, and gingerly carried it to the trash.

I think it is a sphinx moth of some sort, which are really very cool. They can hover like humming birds. I once saw a large flock of them around my butterfly bushes when we were living in Illinois. They even make a humming sound when they hover.

Kitty, however, was disgruntled.



Which is nothing new. You can't see the bits of moth all over her face. Lucky you.