Date:  May 31, 2007

Mothra vs. Poppie 

Dearest Seekers of Truth and Enlightenment,

    It starts innocently enough doesn’t it? There you are lifting a child high in your arms to observe the miracle of nature clinging to the back porch screen and the next thing you know you have no pants on.  I am endlessly fascinated by how very wrong the very right things can go.

    May seems to be the month of the really big moths here in Florida.  I’m telling you these suckers are huge and bad with directions, because they’re always winding up on my back porch screen where they lurk about—being enormous. And, of course, the grandchildren are fascinated and have to be lifted up high in the air to see these amazing bits of flittery mother nature.

    “Oh look, sweetheart,” you say with the proper enthusiasm. “ Isn’t that amazing? Do you know what that is?”  This is the moment that a cramp develops in your left forearm because the kid is such a chunk that she’s crushing all the veins in your upper body.  But you are determined to help this precious child unlock the wonders of the insect universe.

    “A birdy,” the adorable child stutters in her adorable little voice.

    You laugh at the simple, delightful ignorance and say, “No darling, that’s a really HUGE moth.  Isn’t it cool?”  You take half a step back when the HUGE moth thing starts to twitch.

    “I want it.”

    “Of course you do, sweetling, you’re a capitalist.  Let’s get a jar.”

    Rummaging through the cabinets you reject the pickled okra jar in favor of a mustard jar because you’ve doing some calculations in your head and you’ve determined that moth has the wingspan of a Boeing 747.

    With a shudder you scoop the specimen up and  display it for the the enthralled three-year old set.  Unfortunately, the one-year old toddler set does not understand any of the  following concepts, “no touch, no crush, no stomp, no eat, or no smash specimen jar into a thousand dangerous glass shards,” but the toddler is determined to upset the whole mystical balance of nature in a mustard jar scenario and the screaming fight ensues.  Three-year old refuses “to share,” because she knows a bull in a china shop when she sees one.  One-year old refuses to call off the frontal assault until he has his hands on a thousand moth bits.  Parental set looses their mind.

    This time it was Phillip who snapped, and with a shout of uncontrolled ire he leaped to his feet, snatched the moth in the jar, slammed his way from the back porch, and released the captive moth by flinging it from the jar into the part of sky where only the space shuttle can fly.  And to no one in particular he shouted, “If you can’t share the moth then no one sees the moth—now or ever.” Or something along those lines.  The one-year old lost interest and went to suck mildew off the patio furniture.

    The three-year went into spasms of unrequited moth love.

    “He was my friend!” she wailed, her face awash in tears and misery.  “My . . . best . . . best . . . friend . . .”  Wailing.  And more wailing.

    Phillip’s heart turned to a stone.  My heart turned to stone.  But the Poppie (grandfather to the stars) quietly slipped from the back porch with the three-year old wailer in hand and began a perimeter sweep for the moth who would be friend.

    Our adult conversation ebbed and flowed in the ensuing peace.  A little while later, I finally realized what Sherwood (i.e. Poppie) was up to—moth hunt. Shockingly, when he and Zoe came back inside—without Mothra—Zoe was wearing Poppie’s shirt.

    “Good grief man what happened to your shirt?”  I demanded.

    “She got cold looking for the moth.”

    “It’s a good thing she didn’t need a ride to the airport or you’d have given her the keys to the car and your pants.”

    Zoe sadly related the story of the failed expedition, “My friend is gone.”

    I thought, “No, Zoe, I don’t think so.  I think your best friend just gave you the shirt off his back.”  And a few minutes of his time to hopelessly search among the leaves and twigs for the moth that got away. 

    Is it any wonder that they adore each other?  Is it any wonder that she calls him on her pretend cell phone and gabs on and on about her three-year old troubles?  Is it any wonder that the first thing she asks when she comes to our house is, “Where is Poppie?”

    Happy day to the Fathers and Grandfathers who give us the shirts off their backs while helping us search for lost—never to be found—moths in haystacks.

Linda (Get a Net) Zern

    PS    Phillip had the almost mystical good fortune of finding an identical moth on the front porch of their house, which he scooped up in a Tupperware container and which Zoe carted around for days.  The only glitch is that this moth was stone cold dead.  It didn’t seem to matter.

Linda L. Zern

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