It's Miller Time out here on the Front Range, and it isn't what you're thinking. This is an outbreak year.
My wind-down routine at night includes dousing the lights and reading for a bit by a small reading light. DC says that the array of bulbs in the little lamp reminds him of stadium lights, so I try not to point it his direction.
When the reading light comes on, the Millers have been taking it as their cue to hurl themselves out of the night at me. This distresses me because this year they are the size of bats. Having bats fly in my face does not dispose me to sleep. What it disposes me toward is grabbing anything to bat at or throw at or wave at these miscreants. Swinging and hitting means quickly wiping moth guts off the white walls. Swinging and missing means we're back to the races.
What are the races? It's actually kind of a shooting match. The other night, for instance, it entailed my careening around bedroom furniture trying to get close enough not for a direct hit, but to envelope these nuisance visitors in a fragrant cloud of hairspray. I have no confidence that it worked because there was no reassuring flash of Millers falling from Heaven, e.g. the cathedral ceiling of the bedroom. Even it looks like game over, it's hard to distinguish a knock-out from a time-out.
While I accept in principal my duty to live peaceably with all creatures, I need my sleep. That's non-negotiable, at least until the Millers start kicking in on the mortgage.
So DC sensibly suggested augmenting the arsenal. Today I ventured forth to what I like to call The Killing Wall at McGuckin's. It is a literal wall, ten feet high at least, and it runs the length of part of the building, but probably not more than a tenth of a block.
The place where If we don't have it, you don't need it might have all kinds of earth-friendly solutions of limited effect; well, actually, they don't. It's moth balls, good only for enclosed areas, or it is something called SLA, a spray with a can that states unambiguously: "KILLS MOTHS". Supposedly it has a cedar scent, but as I was atomizing the areas of entry such as windows and screens I was exerting myself mightily to avoid accidentally breathing in something that KILLS MOTHS. Report to follow.
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