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Maybe It's My Shiny Hair.... by Indie |
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Mottephobia.
For laymen like you and me, that is a fear of moths. Of which I am a sufferer.
I am loathe to call it a phobia, but the fact that a single,
teeny, tiny moth can turn me into a quivering jellified heap of terror,
then I guess the word of the day is: Mottephobia. I
couldn’t really tell you the day I decided I was petrified of moths.
There’s no Event that sticks in my mind as the turning point
from indifference to hatred. It
had always been that I disliked them, and whenever one is near, I start
flapping around like a hen and squealing like a stuck pig. And
they know, you know. They are more than aware of who is scared of them and who is not. They’ve probably got some big central checklist of names. I am a moth-magnet. You could put me in a hermetically sealed room, and a moth would find a way to get in, a la ‘The Fly’. Who can say why they love me so? |
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I
was chatting on the phone to my sister last night (she will call
me at stupid ‘o’ clock to ask me questions like: “What was that
film we watched that we cried our eyes out at?”) and this evil moth
made a beeline for my hair. In
a case such as this, I’m in favour of the Uncle Jimbo and Ned excuse
of “It’s coming straight for us!” I started swatting at it with
the only thing at hand (the telephone directory: you need manly wrists
to swat with one of those babies, let me tell you). In
panic, I threw the phone to the floor, swatting for England, yelping and
screaming, all the while listening to dear, sweet sister cackling at the
end of the line, trying to get her friends to “come over and hear
this!” I
finally managed to splat the offending beastie against the wall,
smearing brown, glittery goo all along the lovingly painted yellow
walls. Clash much? Rubbing
a torn piece of envelope over the offending mark, I took in a calming
breath, settled myself on the stairs, and picked up the phone to hear
peals of laughter and derisory comments. Yes, I know I’m pathetic.
Yes, I know it’s sad for a grown woman to be afraid of tiny
insects. I resent her
mocking. I
can’t help being afraid. I
can’t help it if I lock myself out of my house while trying to escape
the Moths of Wrath. I
promise you, one looked like the one from Silence of the Lambs; I could
see the skeleton. I’ve
seen that movie enough; I know what happens to women who see those
moths. Fair enough, it’s
pretty stupid to have to wait on your own doorstep for an hour until
your housemate comes home, but still, I couldn’t help it. I
can’t help it if I run out of the kitchen at the sight of a fluttery
shadow, abandoning my food merrily cooking on the stove and thus setting
it on fire. But hey, at
least it burned the moth too. They’re
attracted to light, right? I must have super-healthy spinky spangly shiny hair, and the
moths from miles around go all “Wow, look at that! It’s shiny. Go,
go, go!” It’s
vanity’s fault. If things
don’t improve, I may stop washing my hair altogether.
Or wear hats. That’s
the other reason I hate moths. They
are so pathetically stupid. They’ll
zoom into any light source like an auto-focus on a camera.
They are attracted to light, any light.
They can’t stay away from it, even if it means burning to death
in the process. So
why don’t they just come out in the daytime?
Plenty of light around there, and you wouldn’t have to fight
each other for singeing space. I think I could cope with moths in the daytime; I don’t
have any problems with butterflies, and they’re just tarty moths. Maybe fearing moths is a bit sad. But if you’ve got a spider to deal with, I’m there for you. Unless it’s one of those big, hairy, scuttling ones. Or one of those fat, velvety ones you get in the garden. Or one of those freaky long-bodied... |
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© Indie |
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