A Jar of Wings

Hungry.

Until a few days ago , there was a decent coffeeshop directly behind my apartment, but Starbucks recently opened a franchise two blocks down and my local shop couldn't compete.

Local Shop had better coffee, better atmosphere, better prices and cute college girls who knew my name and flirted with me.

Starbucks has bitter coffee, loud crowds, higher prices and stressed-out college girls who call me "sir".

I want a bagel or a pastry, but I refuse to give Barfucks my money.

All the corner markets in my neighborhood have closed over the last few years except for the one that specializes in 40 oz. bottles of malt liquor (99 cents, 8.0% alcohol, oh yeah!) so either I drive or I make do with what's in the cupboard.

I don't feel like driving, so let's see... plenty of coffee already made , two bananas and a cardboard jar of oatmeal. This is excellent- some honey, cinnamon, stir it up, very tasty and very healthy.

Except there's only about a teaspoon of oat flakes rattling around in the empty jar. Who put the empty jar back anyway? Jerk.

Oh, right. There's a full one on the top shelf.

I pull it down and remove the plastic lid.
Hmm.
There 's a tiny hole in the protective seal, near the edge of the jar. Has someone tampered with my oatmeal? That would be my luck- done in by poisoned oatmeal.

The jar feels unbalanced, like the contents haven't settled properly.

Poised, ready for anything, I rip the the seal off with a vigorous tug.

everything goes...tan.

Tan?

Ahhh...there are moths everywhere. My tiny kitchen is swarming with tiny tan moths, hundreds, maybe thousands of them...I'm a big , brave boy so I don't scream.

I yell.
I can be pretty obscene , even at 7 am.

Yelling at insects is futile.
I light a couple of incense sticks in the kitchen, open the door and remove the screens from the windows. I use a pair of album covers as fans , creating wind , trying to blow the little brown bastards out of my home.

My cats think it's the best day ever- they are jumpin' , swattin', crushin,' eatin' and generally having a great time with all these new flapping, fuzzy toys- I make a mental note to study genetics; if one could crossbreed moths and catnip, soon there would be no moths.

Between the smoke and the wind, it takes about 30 minutes before I reduce the mighty swarm to a few stragglers. The cats will take care of them.

Whew.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Still hungry.

I look into the Moth Jar.

There are no oats in it, only dead moths and about two fingers of a granulated yellow powder at the bottom. What is that stuff?
Oh yuck.
It has to be moth turds.

Not hungry anymore.