Moth Attack!

The other day, I read a blog post from The Petersons Go Public (Shout out to all the SITS gals!) that really made me smile. Jennifer talks of her encounters with various members of the insect family. As someone who has made her home in the middle of Insect Mania, I could completely relate.

She devotes a good portion of the post to her fear of moths. While I relate to her points about moths being totally creepy, I actually thought to myself while reading - "Moths are not too bad."

I should have learned by now that I should never make these sort of generic statements. They invite disaster. But, I haven't.

We have lots of moths hanging around the lights on our front porch. Occasionally one will sneak in an open door, and I humanely chase it down and lead it back outside.

Moths are in a category I refer to as "personal space violators". They have no sense of personal boundary and often come in to close to me. Unlike most insects in this category, I make an extra effort to treat them humanely. This is out of respect to their butterfly cousins, which I am quite fond of. But, things change.

Tonight, while washing my face in the bathroom before bed, a moth took a nose dive from the vanity lights above and went straight for my eyes.

Let me add here that my vision is pretty poor unassisted, especially my depth perception, so I found myself in a state of complete vulnerability.

The moth landed on my nose between my eyes.

I shrieked and fled the scene with my face dripping wet. "Get it, get it, GET IT!" I yelled to J. I wanted this violator out of my house, humanely or not.