The Observer, April 4, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 23
Worst Case Scenario: Infestation!
Last night I had a bad dream. The former student-body president from my high school was visiting my house, and some strange things were happening. The walls were covered in reddish-brown gook. It looked like a crime scene. My embarrassment at a dirty house echoed the embarrassment I feel in real life when people come into my apartment and I haven't done the dishes. The epicenter of the nauseating scene was in the kitchen, which was dripping in gory slime. A small, white hutch rested against one of the oozing walls. As the student-body president and I walked toward it, it started to shake back and forth, and the doors clattered from the pressure of something inside, desperately trying to force its way out. Just as the suspense reached its peak, the doors burst open and millions of moths escaped into my apartment. The room was instantly filled with flitting, dusty gray wings. I could feel the wretched vermin in my hair, brushing my skin, seeming to magically multiply and fill the room.
I was still flailing, trying to get the moths off of me when I woke up. The first thing I did was make sure the student-body president wasn't still in the apartment somewhere. Then I checked the walls to make sure that some horrible bloody moth secretion hadn't developed while I was sleeping. Last but not least, I cautiously snuck over to the moth trap in the kitchen pantry to see what was cooking. A solitary moth lay dead inside. I rolled my eyes, and went back to bed.
I have a moth problem (literally, and apparently psychologically, too). I don't know where they came from, why they are here, or what cosmic crime I committed in a past life to deserve them, but lately the horrible little creatures have been popping up with ever-increasing frequency. Until lately, I was in extreme, almost pathological denial. Whenever a moth would show its horrid little face in my apartment, I would tell myself that it had somehow gotten lost and wandered in alone – that it wasn't a sign of things to come.
But then the dreams started. Spiders, rats, crocodiles, foaming dogs, and of course, moths, began haunting my otherwise peaceful evenings. Enough was enough. I bought the traps. But the nightmares clearly haven't stopped. And it wasn't until today that I figured out why.
As college students, we're really on our own, at the mercy of administrators, professors, resident assistants, advisors, and so forth. But once we lose control of the really tiny fauna, we're really up a creek without a paddle. Those moths of mine represent yet another unpleasant reminder of the unfortunate realities of the real world. They're distasteful and unpleasant, like many of life's harsh realities, and it's up to me to tackle the problem.
There's a lesson to be learned from this dream. When life gives you lemons, or in my case, thousands of satanic moths, you can either be overwhelmed by them, or do something about them. For the sake of my sleep, I have decided to overcome my fear of moths. I mean, they're tiny, they don't make any noise, they don't bite, and they're relatively easy to catch. Piece of cake. I'll be repainting my newly pest-free dream apartment in no time!
Now what can I do about my nocturnal fear of student-body presidents?
