Those Who Fight Moths with Stuffed Dogs

I thought I was doing my aunt and sister a favor when I fought off the moth on the car door with a stuffed African wild dog. After all, they did ask me to deal with the bug, and I dealt with it in the only way I knew how - loud, enthusiastic use of convenient-if-eccentric tools. Instead, they reacted by laughing in what was partly amusement but mostly embarrassment and making statements to the effect of "we don't know you".

Not five minutes prior, we had been coming out of the grocery store at which we were buying supplies for the weekend. (My sister and I sometimes spend the weekend hanging out at my aunt's house, and we usually stop at the grocery store beforehand for milk, cereal, ice cream, and other essentials-to-life.) Either a moth had gotten into our car or it had been there all along and only made its presence known to us when we returned to put our necessities in the car, but when we got in the car, we found it sitting quietly on the inner part of the car door of the passenger's seat (my typical seat in the car).

One might have thought it was a black widow or a scorpion or some kind of actually threatening creature from the way my aunt and sister were reacting to it. As I recall it, they were sitting in their seats, recoiling and screaming like nothing so much as the soon-to-be-victims of a decidedly corny horror film. They wanted me to deal with it.

I can deal with insects, but I don't like touching them. I imagined that getting the moth to leave its place on the car door and fly out into the open night would require either touching it or getting my hand dangerously close to it. However, I reached for a readily-available weapon and decided to threaten the moth with it. Said readily-available weapon was a stuffed animal in the likeness of an African wild dog. It was mine; it is with only a tiny bit of shame that I admit I still sleep better with stuffed animals in my bed. 

They wanted me to deal with it.

I dealt with it.

With a cry of, "Get out!" and an additional cry of, "Get out, you jerk!", I waved the stuffed dog threateningly at the moth. When that wasn't enough, I hit the car door with the plush animal - not actually hitting the moth but coming close enough to make it have second thoughts about maintaining its offending position. It  flew off and landed on someone else's car door. That was all we needed. I waved the dog in the moth's general direction once more and got into the car, closing the door triumphantly.

"I don't know you," my sister said to me upon my entry. "Really. I don't know you." This was her way of saying, "We wanted you to do the very simple task of getting the moth out of our car. You instead reacted by fighting it off with a stuffed animal and yelling mild insults at it. This is highly embarrassing and we did not want the entire grocery store parking lot to witness it."

Through my laughter (for I was still quite excited from the situation), I made some statement to the effect of, "Well, I got the job done, didn't I?" I didn't wonder why this event was so embarrassing until we got to my aunt's house.

Why is it embarrassing to know someone who fights off moths with a stuffed dog? It's because such methods are highly unusual and a little bit stupid-looking to the world-at-large. Furthermore, yelling things such as "Get out, you jerk!" show very plainly that you are enthusiastic about the task, enough to yell where yelling is not required. (In the end, I don't think the moth cared much whether I yelled or not.)

People who fight moths with stuffed dogs while yelling are highly unusual people. They don't handle things the way one would expect them to. They take their own approach to it, and said approach often looks perfectly loony. Normal people do not fight moths with stuffed dogs while calling them (the moths) jerks.

Personally, I love people who do such things. They are the individuals who keep humanity from becoming dull. They are the little crinkles in the fabric of society that keep it from being flat. They are the guardians of cheerful, brilliant lunacy, and they are utterly invaluable.

If you are the sort of person who would fight off moths with a stuffed African wild dog, I commend you. You are a fantastic individual, and I want you to never forget it. If you would take an eccentric and brilliant approach to such a situation, I want you to remember that you are in fact eccentric and brilliant, and those are some of the greatest qualities a human can possess. If you ever feel as though society doesn't value you (it probably doesn't) or that you are having a hard time finding a place in the world (you probably are) or even that life is just too dull and too dark a place for a personality such as yours (it probably is), just say to yourself: "I am eccentric and brilliant. I am the sort of person who would fight off a moth with a stuffed dog. I am awesome."