There’s a moth situation in Colorado. More specifically, there’s a moth situation in my apartment. But I hear it’s a statewide problem, which makes me feel better about having bugs spinning around the inside of my bedside lamp and lining my walls at night.
Being of the disposition to find a narrative wherever possible, I’ve been looking for something romantic about moths. But their aggressive and occasionally detrimental love of light just freaks me out. And I don’t appreciate getting out of the shower to find a moth floating out of my bathrobe and fluttering into me.
But they’re mostly benign. They have no taste for my blood, only my sweaters. And there’s something so sad about their final hours. They fly around like a drunk, unsure of their direction and without the energy to get there. I even feel a bit of sympathy for the ones who are too weak to escape the coming rolled-up magazine.
Still, there’s something blatantly gross when I find one dead on its own accord, sleeping forever on my bedside table. But these dead bugs bring out the optimist in me. Because what’s grosser than a dead moth? A living one.