A Moth Story

I had a whole thing written where I was going to tell you about a project I’ve been working on, but at the last minute I decided it needs a little more time in the oven before I can share it.

And now it’s too late to do a big article based on something thoroughly researched or anything like that, so instead I’m going to tell you an absolutely true moth story.

You may be familiar with The Moth, the live storytelling events that happen around the country. I’ve been to a couple and they are a lot of fun. But that’s not what I mean by a moth story. This is a story about actual moths. Except it starts with a bird.

When I was 13 years old, I got a cockatiel for my birthday. I really wanted a bird that could talk, and I heard that you could teach cockatiels to talk and my parents agreed to get me one if I promised to take good care of it.

We set up a birdcage in my bedroom and bought a cockatiel from a local bird breeder. I named it Coco because I heard that repetitive sounds are easier for birds to learn, and that was a good way to teach it to say its name. I think I spent the whole first day just saying “Coco” over and over to that bird. At night, I put the cover over the cage and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, the bird was dead.

I was devastated. I cried ugly tears. My parents contacted the bird lady who said that the bird must have been sick and she didn’t know it. She gave us a refund.

A few months later, we got a new cockatiel. It looked just like the old one. I named this one “Tuco” because the name sounded like the number Two and two “Co” sounds is “Coco.” And this was the second bird. I hoped it wouldn’t die because Threeco is a terrible name.

Tuco did not die, at least not for a while. But my enthusiasm for having a bird was significantly lessened after my first experience. I didn’t play with Tuco as much as I probably should have. I didn’t change the papers in the bottom of his cage as much as I should have. My bedroom started to smell like dirty bird water.

But the strangest thing was that every time I walked into my bedroom, I’d see three or four little tiny moths flying around.

I’d kill them, or maybe not, but it didn’t matter because the next time I came into my bedroom there would be three or four little tiny moths flying around.

It was weird and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. But whatever, three or four moths aren’t a big deal. We’d have the occasional housefly, so what’s a few moths?

One day, I lay on my back in bed, bored in that 13 year old pre-internet way where you have nothing to do but stare up at the ceiling. It was one of those popcorn ceilings that were so popular in the late 70s with a rough texture. Except I could have sworn that the texture was moving.

I stood on my bed for a closer look. My ceiling was covered with thousands of little tiny moths, crawling all over it.

I freaked out. I shut the door to my bedroom and vowed never to go in again. I told my parents about the moths. We went in quickly to move the birdcage to the kitchen so I wouldn’t have to go in there to feed the bird. I slept on the couch for the next week as we pondered how to deal with this. No way was I sleeping in there.

We came up with a plan: We would cover every surface in my bedroom with sheets. Then we would get one of those bug foggers that fill a room with insecticide, killing anything it reaches. The moths would die and fall onto the sheets. Then all we’d have to do is gather up the sheets and throw them away.

So we did it. We covered everything in the room. We set the bug fogger canister in the middle of the room, set it off, and ran out, closing the door. A couple hours later we went in, ready to see thousands of dead moths scattered around.

But there were no dead moths. The sheets were clean. How could this be? Were they some sort of supermoths?

So we got on a stepladder for a closer look. They were not supermoths. They were all dead. But they did not fall. I now had thousands of dead moths stuck to my ceiling.

This was not the outcome I hoped for. I was crestfallen that this ordeal wasn’t over. But at least it was progress.

Time for a new plan. It was clear what had to be done, and it was clear that it was gonna really suck.

I taped a nail to the end of a broomstick and meticulously picked each dead moth off my ceiling, one by one. I let them fall on the sheets. Then we gathered them up and threw them out.

Our best guess as to what happened was that the bag of birdseed I kept in my room must have had moth eggs in it which hatched and found a home in my ceiling. We kept the birdseed in a Tupperware container after that.

I was pretty traumatized by moths for a while. I don’t remember how long it was before I was willing to sleep in my room again. And my parents helped take care of Tuco going forward.

And that’s my Moth Story. Thank you for coming to my Moth Talk.

I’m having a bit of a post-traumatic flashback reliving this. Someone tell me a happy story as a chaser. Either that or tell me your own worse story so mine can feel tame in comparison. The comments are a great place for either.

As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll consider donating if you liked this story, but not because you want to read more moth stories, since I think that’s really the only one I have.

See you next time!

David