Lately, I've had the itch to tell stories. I go over happenings and incidents in my day, thinking about the most entertaining (and maybe funny) way to tell people about it. There's really not much that happens in a typical day, so older stories have been creeping in, too.
The other day, I shared this story in a forum of friends, and thought it would be a good way to get back into using this space the way I used to. More recently, I've been all about the pictures, and wouldn't think of using this space if there wasn't a jpg involved.
So, I’ve been plagued with moths for a few months now. I see on average one a day, sometimes in the living room, sometimes in the front hall, and sometimes in the bedroom. In response, I have developed “moth vision”. This is an almost super-power that allows me to locate the tiniest spot on a bare wall and identify it as a moth. (side effect of this is my slapping at every speck on every wall)
I’ve unpacked and repacked my entire stash several times, as well as my hall closet and my clothes closet. I shake out all my knitted scarves and hats daily, before leaving the house in the morning. I’ve layered my clothes in the closet with dryer sheets. The boxes that hold my stash also hold sachets of lavender. My less-used stash is all in giant ziploc bags.
The most maddening encounters are in the evening, when I’m finally just sitting, knitting in front of my laptop, tv on in the background, and I see movement flutter in front of the tv screen. I leap up, casting my knitting aside, knocking the cat off my lap (his back claws ripping through my legs in startlement) and clap madly across the room. Only to lose sight of the bugger when it flies in front of a less contrasting surface. Light colours are my kryptonite. And the whole time, I’ve been trying to find the source of my torture. The nest. The pit of evil.
Today, I’d killed 2 or 3 of the venomous little arsebites, and when another fluttered out of sight somewhere under the end table, I trembled on the edge of an emotional breakdown. The moths were winning the war with their campaign of mindgames and deceit. I went a little mad, pulling out everything under the table, trying to find the escapee. I pulled out a basket with yarn ends that I’d only half-examined in my previous investigations. The yarn ends were all acrylics, and therefore not nearly as tasty as the other options in my house. Halfway down, I found two inches of a clapotis in tencel. I noticed a little fluff on the roll of yarn that pulled apart when I tugged at it. I put this aside and kept digging to the bottom of the basket. There, I found a horrifically demolished pile of used-to-be-baby-sock. The bottom of the basket was covered in some kind of white detritus that I didn’t want to look at too closely. When I looked at something that had stuck to my fingernail, I found that it was a tiny white larva. That was it. I wanted to be elated at finally having found the source, but was way too squicked out.
I ripped out the clapotis, cutting it off the circular needle when it wouldn’t pull off, and casting the yarn bits to the wind off the balcony. The only other ball of natural fibre and the roll of tencel went into the freezer after a quick but careful examination. The basket, four flour sack cotton bags, and about ten partial balls of acrylic all went immediately into the garbage can near the building’s rear entrance. All the furniture was pulled away from the wall, the floor and rug vacuumed and washed. The clothes I was wearing were taken out to the balcony, vigorously shaken, and then put into a grocery bag before going into the hamper. The socks I was wearing (knitted, of course) were also shaken, then put into another plastic bag and chucked into the freezer with the yarns.
I’m hoping that this was the only place they were really reproducing. I’m hoping that I got all the eggs and various other life stages sucked up or sprayed dead. I’m hoping the nightmare is over.
