The mystery of the musical moths
Jul. 21st, 2016 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatSome 15 years ago, we bought a piano. Very soon after we bought it, an blanket of caterpillars appeared on its surface, followed by battalions of moths. We reported this to the piano vendor, who denied ever having seen a caterpillar or moth in his entire life. There was no possibility that the infestation could have originated in his warehouse, and the piano was definitely caterpillar-free when we bought it. To be honest, we doubted this, but what can you do? I hate killing things just because they're inconvenient, but we really didn't want armies of moths in our house, possibly eating clothes, carpet, curtains and cat. We put moth balls inside the piano, and the armies slowly dwindled. No caterpillars or moths were seen for years, and the whole affair was almost forgotten.
But nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten. A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were a lot of small dead moths on the carpet underneath the piano. I hoovered them up, but by the next day, they were back again. They are all concentrated in a square foot of visible carpet, next to one end of the piano. A few small moths have been spotted flapping around the house, but most of them are evident only by their corpses.
Are they the same colony? 15 years ago, when we thought we'd beaten them, had we just driven them deep within the piano, where they have spent 15 years digging a vast underground metropolis and perfecting their revenge? Are there whole moth generations reared on tales of the cruelties of the two-legged masters of the plinky-plonk keys? Admittedly, it's not a particularly impressive revenge thus far, since it appears to consist of emerging from beneath the piano and keeling over within a few inches, but it's early days yet. Will their masterminds learn from the failures of the first wave, and tweak their tactics accordingly? What dread fate is being prepared for us?
I know we ought to move the piano and look beneath it, but I'm scared to.
But nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten. A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were a lot of small dead moths on the carpet underneath the piano. I hoovered them up, but by the next day, they were back again. They are all concentrated in a square foot of visible carpet, next to one end of the piano. A few small moths have been spotted flapping around the house, but most of them are evident only by their corpses.
Are they the same colony? 15 years ago, when we thought we'd beaten them, had we just driven them deep within the piano, where they have spent 15 years digging a vast underground metropolis and perfecting their revenge? Are there whole moth generations reared on tales of the cruelties of the two-legged masters of the plinky-plonk keys? Admittedly, it's not a particularly impressive revenge thus far, since it appears to consist of emerging from beneath the piano and keeling over within a few inches, but it's early days yet. Will their masterminds learn from the failures of the first wave, and tweak their tactics accordingly? What dread fate is being prepared for us?
I know we ought to move the piano and look beneath it, but I'm scared to.
