A bee sting, a mosquito bite, a fly in my food. These are all annoyances in my book. I can handle a bee, I can scratch away the mosquito bite and I can stop eating whatever dish has attracted a fly.

But there’s one insect I declare a lifelong hand-to-wing combat with: the moth. And unfortunately for me, Kemmerer definitely has a moth problem.

Now I know, moths really aren’t that harmful to humans like bees and disease-carrying mosquitos. So I’m sure you don’t see the moths as a huge problem. But I do. And here’s why.

Moths are attracted to light, right? Well what’s as shiny as a new lightbulb but not as hot? The glimmer of said lightbulb reflecting off my blond hair and white forehead.

I just want a relaxing evening without a moth incident.

Here’s how it usually goes: I’ll be sitting on the couch in my living room, watching TV and minding my own business, when a moth somehow enters the room. (I swear, how do they always get through closed doors and windows? Can they fly through walls or something?) I notice the moth, but figure that if I keep to my own business, it will keep to its own.

Wrong.

The moth gets under the lightbulb in the center of the room and starts spiraling up and down under the light, occasionally interfering with my TV show. Whatever, it’s just a bug, right?

Wrong again. It’s a strategically manuvering warrior.

Following the spiral, the moth swoops high into the air, points its head at me, folds its wings in, and dives with the speed of sound like a World War II kamikaze right at my face. I try to duck, but alas, I am not as quick as the moth. He pelts me right in the center of my forehead, then falls down into my lap.

When I tell people how often this happens to me, they never believe it. But I swear on my Spud Webb rookie basketball card that this is a thrice weekly battle.

One time I actually did dodge the kamikaze attack, but the moth just swirled back around and nailed forehead anyway, as if to say “Dumb blonde, you can’t escape me!”

When my wife and I went fishing last weekend along Hams Fork, I was “kamikazied” about a dozen times. It happened so much in a 2-minute length of time that I didn’t even bother trying to dodge the attacks. I just sat there and accepted my pathetic failure in the battle. I was even wearing bug spray on my face.

Why am I writing about this in my column? Because when I sat down to type this waste of your time, a moth swooped around my computer and bulls-eyed my nose. I hate moths.

w Speaking of battles lost, every week I receive releases from the Wyoming Highway Patrol about fatal vehicle crashes on our Wyoming highways. I have noticed one thing in common with about 90 percent of the fatalities: the person who dies in the accident isn’t wearing a seatbelt or is a motorcyclist not wearing a helmet.

I hope that we all remember to buckle up. In my opinion, it’s absurd to not wear a seatbelt when you’re driving at speeds of more than 50 m.p.h. I receive about three or four of these fatality press releases every week. That’s an awful lot of people not wearing seatbelts or helmets when on a highway. I had no idea that so many people still neglected the single most life-saving invention known to man. Please buckle up. I haven’t received any of the releases announcing the death of a Kemmerer motorist. But if we don’t all buckle up or strap on our helmets, I’m sure I’ll receive a couple local tragedies soon and I think we’d all hate to see one of our own fall to another tragic seatbeltless death.

Zach Zavoral is the Editor of the Kemmerer Gazette who now runs away at the sight of a moth. You can reach him at (307) 877-3347 or editor@kemmerergazette.com.



For the complete article see the 07-29-2010 issue.

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