Forget King Kong…
December 30th, 2005…and all of those other monster movies, this is the latest thing: Jondar vs the Somewhat-Larger-Than-Normal Monster Moth! Dun-Dun!-DUUUUN!
Because of work (and the summer heat) I’ve tended to be a night-owl, and being on the computer (and of course, online) during the middle of the night. Now of course, this being summer, the insects seem to be out in force: including the moths. These aren’t just your average itty-bitty moths that buzz around light bulbs and are a general – but mostly ignorable – nuisance; they’re giant monsters of moths, that are closer in size to flutterbys… erm… butterflies. And like the old saying: “Like a moth to a flame…” (or is that “like a moth to a energy-saving flourescent lightbulb?”)
I don’t know how it got inside in the first place – all the openable windows are flyscreened – maybe it got in through an open door during the day? *shrug* That’s not really the point. The point was that this giant moth decided that my home-office – and it’s associated lightbulb and computer monitor – was a nice target.
I first noticed it just after midnight, when the ambient light from behind me sort of strobed, rather noticeable. I mentally shrugged: ‘just another moth’ I thought as I went back to reading forum posts online. That changed about five or ten minutes later when the moth seemingly divebombed me like a WWII bomber and landed on the monitor…
O.O
…I had never seen a (live) moth that big that close before! It was a monster-moth! A wingspan of about 8-10cm (that’s about 2.5-3 inches). It was as if the itty-bitty moths had had enough of annoying me and decided to call in their big beefy brothers instead! I glared at it as it rested, then decided to shoo it away by gently flicking it. It shooed all right – straight into my face. This Means War!
And hence started the David-vs-Goliathesqe battle of wits. I batted the moth away properly, sending it fluttering around the room, occasionally attracted to the lightbulb and monitor, but mostly moth-buzzing and moth-strafing my desk, bookshelves and TV stand, not to mention several further attack runs at me. All the time, I would hurriedly bat it away from me in sheer annoyance, while I looked desperately around the room for a humane trap.
About ten minutes later, it landed on the carpet not far from my closed door, seemingly tired from its exertions. In the mean time I had located an empty plastic cup – normally used for keeping my art brushes in while painting – and a sheet of thickish cardboard – the only remains from one of my scribble pads. I quietly snuck up on the moth on the carpet…
WHAP! went the cup right on top of the moth! YES! went the gleeful human – me – as I slid the sheet of cardboard between lip of the cup and the carpet, neatly trapping the moth. I gently turned the cup over, keeping the cardboard “lid” firmly in place. I could vaguely see the now startled moth through the opaque plastic cup, desperately trying to escape. I had brief thoughts of keeping it trapped for a while, but my better nature prevailed as I left my office for the sliding patio doors and the outside with the intent of releasing the moth into the Great Outdoors…
…my plan failed. No sooner did I release the moth, did it zoom straight down, brushed past my leg and flew back indoors. You see, I made the fatal error of simply standing in the open doorway as I released the moth. I should’ve walked outside for a bit and then released it, but it was dark, and I didn’t really want to go outside properly. Hence my prey escaping. But at least, I thought: ‘Now it’s in the living room, and since I’ll be in the office, it won’t bother me.’
Just keep on thinking that… Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Zoom forward a couple of blissful moth-free hours. I left my safe insect-free office enclave in search for a drink of water. I left my office door ajar so that I could walk to the kitchen and fridge without turning on another other lights. Now, to get to the kitchen, I have to pass through the living room. At this point, I had all but forgotten about my unexpected houseguest of the insect variety… however, it hadn’t forgotten me…
About twenty minutes after my drink expedition, I’d had finished my drink, and was enconsced back in the office and at the PC, when the lights strobed. “Argh!” was my cry as I spun on my deskchair and looked up: Monster-Moth was back…! And it wanted – like any good monster in a movie sequel – Revenge!
My insect adversary had snuck back into the room during my search for liquid refreshment – using it’s stealthy moves in the mostly-darkness. In addition to it’s increase in Stealth skill points (maybe it leveled up it’s EP during the first “battle”) the moth had wisened up, it seemed, as it apparently avoided the light sources, and just went in for the ultimate annoyance factor: moth-buzzing me! The moth’s several hour stint in the living room had granted it a second wind too.
For almost twenty minutes, my in-progess wallpaper work in Photoshop was ignored as I perfected my King Kong on the Empire State Building impression as I repeatedly batted the moth away from me. The moth would rapidly flutter around the room, strafe me, then buzz back to the relative safety of a bookshelf, while I would ineffectually swipe at the moth with a handkerchief and the cardboard I had used before to trap it. Several times it would alight on a shelf, or my desk, or a wall, and give me a chance to use the cup trap, but it seemed that in addition to the Stealth skill points, the moth had seemingly gained some Agility or perhaps Evasion skill points too, as my attempts at repeating my earlier trap success were stymied.
Frustrated, I tried a different tack: I decided to ignore the moth. I sat back at my desk and went back to work with Photoshop, keeping the cup and cardboard improvised trap at hand… “just in case”. Aside from the occasional swipe at the moth when it came too close, I simply pretended that my foe wasn’t there – mental image of a chibi-Me giving the moth the red-eye while going Biiiiiidaaaa! notwithstanding.
My ignore tactic went on for twenty minutes, finally ending when my peripheral vision registered the fact that the moth had landed on the wall. I decided to wait another ten minutes: if it hadn’t moved in that time, I was going to try my trapping techniques again…
Ten minutes – and six glances at my Clock widget – later, I slowly rose from my chair, picked up the cup and cardboard sheet and slowly, calmly stepped towards the (hopefully) unsuspecting moth. I gradually raised the cup to about shoulder-height and then gently brought the cup face down over the moth. With a gentle tap this time – no Wham’s, almost anti-climactic – I had the moth trapped between cup and wall, moments later my adversary was imprisoned between cup and cardboard.
Again I contemplated just leaving the moth trapped – this time the temptation was harder to quell – but *sigh* yet again, my good nature won through, and I took the impromptu cup-and-cardboard prison to the patio doors for the second time. This time though, I’d learnt my lesson, and I braved the darkness of 4:30am, walking several metres from the door and released the moth…
…and then raced back to patio doors, stepped back inside, then hurriedly slid the patio door closed. I wasn’t going to risk a third instalment to a possible Jondar vs Monster-Moth trilogy, after all, the first two combined took about four hours…
*FADE TO BLACK*
*ROLL CREDITS*