Mothman Properties

So I find myself early one morning getting ready for a turkey hunting trip. Having called off of work the night before with eye problems,(I couldn't see myself at work when I could be turkey hunting), I made a last minute check of the items that I may need. Camouflage?...Check! Slate call?...Check! Flashlight?... Check!...Gun?... Really?...Gun?...Never mind, that's a story for another time. Having passed the checklist, I hurriedly dumped the remainder of the coffee pot into my travel mug, and was on my way. It was only a one hour drive to where I was hoping to bag a nice bearded tom, and there were around two hours until daybreak. Perfect! That would leave plenty of time after arriving for me to quietly sneak into my hunting spot, set up my decoy, and let the woods settle down to that beautiful quiet time right before dawn that every hunter loves. I began to relax a little for the drive. Still, I could not shake this feeling that I had. Was it a feeling of angst?... Nervousness?... Something....
Arriving right on schedule I donned my camouflage, grabbed my gear, and headed down the trail which led into the woods. Twenty yards down the trail, and having tripped on several fallen branches, it hit me... Flashlight!. Heading back the twenty yards to the truck to retrieve my flashlight there it was again.. The feeling.. It could be nerves.... It could be the pot of coffee... It could be the branch that flipped up and hit me in the temple when I stepped on it in the dark! Oh well. Flashlight now in hand, I made my way back down the trail, swatting at an insect that was attracted by the light. Cautiously, I stepped around all of the previously unseen branches and roots. [Swat!]...Darn bugs! No, not just any bug, a moth. It was flitting around my head, and then to my flashlight, and then it would disappear for a minute and come back. I picked a likely place for my decoy, and headed for a tree to sit by and lean against while I waited for dawn, which was now approaching rapidly with the extra trip back to the truck. So much for being on schedule. [Swat!...Swat!...Swat!]... Then the feeling again...No, not that feeling! It was the feeling of that darn moth landing on the edge of my ear and buzzing it's wings! Instinctively, my hand came up to my ear and covered it... Wrong! With nowhere else to go, and feeling my body warmth, the moth crawled right into my ear and directly down the ear canal, stopping only when it found a nice, comfortable spot on my eardrum!
The first thing that I found in the fallen leaves and underbrush was of course my flashlight. Then I located my shotgun, and a few of the shells that went flying in all directions, while I ran around in circles beating myself in the head with both hands. Looking back, it probably would have been helpful to find my eyeglasses first, as I am nearly legally blind without them. Somehow though, after crawling around on all fours, and reciting a few previously long forgotten prayers, I managed to find them last.
OK... We have a situation here... Now what we need is a course of action, a plan! Stay calm and think! My mind, such as it is, immediately began flipping through my mental Rolodex. I looked under “foreign object in body orifice”... Nothing... Then, “Living foreign object in body orifice”. Still nothing. It soon became apparent that I had nothing in recent memory like this ever happen to me before. Or to anyone that I know. Or have heard about. Or have read about. In fact, if someone would have told me that this had happened to them, I would have simply dismissed it as an arrogant lie designed to impress me.
Now I have to think off the cuff.... Out of the box and.... Into my ear! I looked up and saw, a stick. Of course I saw a stick! I'm in the freaking woods! So I took the stick and frantically began digging in the aforementioned ear. Now I know why, when I was a child, they told me to never put anything smaller than my elbow into my ear. It hurts! “Can't reach it with that thing anyway,” I thought, and tossed it aside.
It was about that time that I felt it... The feeling! No! Not that feeling! The feeling of that stupid moth becoming decidedly UN-comfortable and moving around! Each time that it moved one of its tiny, insect like legs, it sounded like an army of goose stepping soldiers marching in my head!
This time I held onto my glasses, but I did have to locate and pick up my shotgun, shells, and flashlight. Flashlight! Wait a minute! It is still somewhat dark, and moths are attracted to light!

Now as crazy as this may sound, there are times that out of sheer desperation, one will try the most absurd things. So I looked around, took the flashlight, and yes, held it to my ear. “Come to the light.... Come to the light... Come to the.....” As it was now getting light enough to see maybe twenty or thirty yards, I could not help but notice the two hunters who had just crested the ridge around fifteen yards out ahead of me. They could also not help but notice me, what with the flashlight sticking in my ear, and chanting to myself and all. They looked at me for a few seconds, then at each other, then back at me. Without so much as a word between them, or to me, I watched as they broke down their shotguns, put the shells in their pockets, turned and began walking back down over the ridge. As they disappeared into the morning mist, I did see one of them turn his head to look back at me. Maybe it was a parting look as if to say goodbye, but most likely it was to see if I was following them.
By this time I was becoming a little frustrated, to say the least. Frustrated and a little worried. Worried about such things as... Oh... I don't know, maybe... What a moth does in warm wet places... Worried about, say, larval stages of insects growing inside my head! What I needed was another plan. Another, more well thought out course of action. Let's see... Oh yeah... Get out! Run! Get help now!....Yes, that would do just fine.
After a quick paced walk through the woods, stopping a few times to pick up all my stuff again thanks to the restless moth, I found myself back at the truck. I stowed my gear, started the truck and I was off. Everything was going as planned. Except.... Off to where? I was on the border of Pa. And W.V. In the woods. Where to go for medical help I would not know. I decided that the best thing to do would be to find some locals and ask for information. I remembered seeing a small “Mom and Pop” store about two miles back the road. Maybe they would be open by now. Country folk get up really early.... Don't they?
Pulling the truck up in front of the store, as luck would have it, there they were, Mom and Pop themselves putting the key into the front door. As the truck came to a stop, I rolled down the window and tooted the horn to gain their attention. This must have also gained the attention of the moth, which at that very moment decided not only to run around on the surface of my eardrum, but also flap it's wings in protest to the horn. So, when they turned to look at me, what they saw was a man who may or may not be in the throes of a very violent attack of Turret’s Syndrome. Twitching, grunting, spewing obscenities. All the while, waving a pair of eyeglasses in one hand, and beating himself in the head with the other. Pop, being the mannerly country gentleman at all times, calmly put his arm around Mom, and guided her through the now open door. Turning back towards me, I thought for an instant that he may be on his way over to the truck to render aid. Instead, he turned again, walked in and closed the door behind him. Next, I watched as he took the “closed” sign out of the door window, opened the door slightly, hung the sign on the outside doorknob, re-closed the door and pulled down the shade.
It took a while, but after I recovered slightly and the moth settled down a bit, I was able to convince Pop that I was not a recent escapee from some mental institution for the criminally insane. After telling him of my unfortunate circumstance, he offered a few words through the still locked door. “Wheeling Hospital” he said. “Maybe fifteen miles down the interstate.” I thanked him kindly and returned to the truck. As I rolled the window back up, I noticed that he had closed the shade again, and the corner of it was pulled aside so as to watch me pull away. I could not say that I blamed him.
Driving the fifteen miles to the hospital was....... interesting. It seems that moths do not particularly like riding in moving vehicles at twenty m. p. h. over the speed limit. Or at any speed really. I know this because approximately every two miles or so, the thing would do a little dance on my eardrum, flapping it's wings at the same time. This, of course, had an adverse effect on my driving abilities. When it would happen, the uncontrollable twitching caused me to swerve over the broken line, then onto the shoulder and back again until it subsided. I slowed down and continued on my way, now twenty m. p. h. below the speed limit. I was concerned for my own safety, but also for my fellow travelers on the highway. Many of those travelers would pull up beside me in the passing lane, and offer me the international, one finger salute to bad drivers world wide. Until they actually got a good look at me. A man in a pickup truck, dressed in camouflage, driving erratically down the highway, with what must have been a wild, and desperate look in his eyes. It's a good thing there was no such thing as “homeland security” at the time, or I may have encountered a military road block along the way. So when those travelers saw me, they simply turned their attention back to the road, and proceeded on their way. Only this time, a lot more than twenty m. p. h. over the speed limit!
Finally arriving at the hospital, I parked the truck in a spot near the emergency entrance. I considered it an emergency. I can't say how the moth felt about it. After having given them all of my pertinent information, I was directed to a waiting area. I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to relax a little. I tried to envision the calm, nice things that I have experienced in the past. However, all that I could conjure up was this vision of tiny baby moths, wearing diapers and flying out of my ear! I can assure you, it is something that you would not want in your mental Rolodex.
After having heard my last name called, or something that nearly approaches it, I found myself in one of the treatment rooms with a young medical technician. She was pretty, maybe in her twenties, and seemed very happy in her work. You know the kind. Maybe a little too happy in her work. “So.... What brings you here today?”she asked. Now, I had just spent the last half hour trying to explain to the other pretty young girl at the desk what had happened to me in such a way as to not make me look like a total idiot. So summoning up my best medical terminology, I simply said,”Foreign object in ear canal.” Impressive huh? With that, she immediately began to gather up all tools and instruments that she deemed necessary, and placed them on a tray next to me. One of which, I noticed, was what I can only describe as a very large “turkey baster.””Watchya gonna do with that”, I asked mildly concerned. “Well, we'll just flush whatever's in there, right out!” she replied enthusiastically. Then I told her what the object actually was. She paused, looked at me for a moment, smiled and said,”Well.... Let's try it anyway!” Anyway? Anyway despite.....What? She filled the bulb of the “turkey baster” with what I imagined was saline solution, sat next to me on a stool and held the spout end up to my ear. The wrong ear! Gently pushing her hand away, I looked at her, and she at me, perplexed. “Not that ear hon'”.... “Oh... This one then?”, and pointed. Then she smiled and giggled, and proceeded. To this day, I'm not sure if her response was a genuine attempt at humor. The alternative would be...... Unthinkable!
I was totally unprepared for what happened next. If you thought that lightly tooting the horn disturbed the moth, imagine what getting hit with a canon full of saline did to his disposition! So, after helping her pick up all the tools and instruments, which went flying in all directions as I flailed about wildly during the flushing out process, I watched sheepishly as she straightened her smock, and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “It's OK. “, she said “Happens all the time.”..... Really? At this point, I felt the need to try to help out a little. It certainly couldn't hurt. I pointed to a utility cart on wheels and said,”Over there. Second drawer down on the right. There's a pair of forceps. Please get them out, reach into my ear with them, and get this thing out of my head!” She stared at me blankly for a moment. Then, to my surprise, opened the drawer. Puke bags! Oh well. Again she looked at me, and wryly stated,”Well, I'm going to have to get a doctor to do that.” Just as wryly I said,”If this is a hospital, there must be a doctor here somewhere.” With that, she was off, having done the best she could.... I'm sure.
The doctor entered the room, and immediately walked to the scrub sink to wash his hands.” So.... What brings you here today?” Really?..... Quashing the urge to reply with,”My truck!.”, I went through the entire days events again.” OK then, let's have a look.” he said as he reach for the... Um-mm.... “Earoscope.” Impressive huh? After a few seconds of peering into my ear, all the while tugging on the lobe and maneuvering the scope, he boldly stated,”That thing is right on your eardrum!” Well get outta town! You don’t say! You could have knocked me over with a feather! Or please add your own surprised expletive. Reaching over to the utility cart on wheels, he put his hand on the second drawer down on the right. “Puke bags!” I said. “Huh?” Nothing.” I said.

He eventually found the right drawer, and after a few minutes of trying to fit the scope and the forceps into my ear at the same time, said,”Need the curved ones.” this seemed to work a lot better because after a few more minutes of digging around, pulled out the forceps and looked at the end of them. “This is it,” I thought! “It's out!”...”I think it's a leg.” he stated. With that, he went back in. A few more minutes and.....”It's a wing.” Shades of the movie “Goodfellas”....”Waddya want? A wing or a leg?”.... At this point the moth itself was either dead, or in severe shock, as it thankfully no longer offered any resistance. “Great!”I thought.”Now I've got a dead insect decomposing in my body!”Not much of an improvement from my stand point! However, with a little patience, and a few body parts later, the doctor was holding the offending interloper up to the light on the end of his instrument to get a better look at it. He set it into a small tray, containing the previously assembled insect. With a last look inside to insure there were no remnants, or larvae I assumed, he was finally done. Such a sigh of relief I have never known in the past, or since.
Now, I've been back there to hunt that particular spot many times since then. I have even stopped into the local pub in town a few times. Which by the way is also owned by none other than Mom and Pop. I've even become friends with them, and some of the locals over a few beers, telling this story to them, and listening to some of theirs. They've even come to give me a nick name...”mothman”. The very last time that I hunted there, as I started down the trail to my spot, I noticed something hanging from one of the tree trunks. Fearing that one of my favorite hunting spots was now posted, I walked over to get a better look. It was a small, wooden, hand made sign. It read as follows...”Beware all who enter here. You are now entering.....” You guessed it.” the Mothman Properties!”