the mothman prophecies

It all started when I mentioned a movie to my laborers, Paul and Jared.

I work for a moving company in the summertime, and when I found out that I was going to be traveling through the midwest, I decided to choose my own labor. After I left Cincinnati, OH, I made my way across Indiana and picked up my new employees.


At some point during the travels, I had mentioned a movie called "The Mothman Prophecies" that had freaked-me-out just a little. Well Paul decided to purchase this movie so that we could watch it in the hotel room, on his laptop.

Now, because I had been driving all day, while they were napping, I could not make it through the whole movie. But at one point I woke up to see both Paul and Jared crouching on the other bed saying, "Oooh man! that is freaking me out!" Then they would rewind the scene and watch it in slow motion, and start to freak out again. I laughed at them and then went back to sleep. I thought that I had heard the last of the mothman... but I was wrong.

I decided to ask Paul to come back with me. I had found that it was a whole-lot easier to bring my labor with me, than it was to try to find an agent in each new town that I went to, and hire some guy that I didn't know. Paul was also a better worker than most of the guys that I had hired over the course of the summer. So it just made sense to bring him with me. (I would have asked Jared to come too, but he was scheduled to go on a missions trip. He was almost kicked off of the smite trip... but that is a-whole-nother story in itself.)

As the summer rolled on, we traveled all over the place. We visited places like Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and so on... We had a lot of fun, and met a lot of interesting people. ...very "interesting" people, people that are so "interesting" that they deserve a post devoted entirely to them. And right at the end of the summer, on the next-to-last trip, the mothman made a personal appearance into our lives.

We were traveling through Virginia, on our way back from the Baltimore-Washington DC area, when Paul, who was "napping" again, flinched. His window had been down, and some large bug had hit the mirror and splattered its innards all over Paul.

While we were discussing the disgustingness of bug innards being splattered all over anything, the moth showed up. It hovered momentarily between the two of us, and then it began to swoop at Paul.

Paul, with his "catman" reflexes, instantly jumped up onto his haunches, began to scream, and swing a pillow in the general direction of the moth. Unfortunately the general direction of the moth was also in the general direction of me. (It is never good to have someone swinging anything in your general direction when you are driving a large vehicle.) In defense of my life, I began yelling at Paul, and the moth, to stop before we were all dead on the side of the road.

Once things calmed down I took the next exit so I could asses the damages. There weren't any. Unless you consider the bug guts on Paul's shirt. We searched for the mystery moth but couldn't find it. We hoped that it was dead and began our trip again. This time with a couple of energy drinks in us.

When we were on the road again, I decided to call my wife and let her know that I was running a little late. Since it was already late when I called her, I figured that she knew that, but thought it best to call anyway. I got my cell phone out and chatted with her for awhile, when I suddenly felt something on my neck. something soft... (At some point I will need to get my wife to type out her version of this part of the story on her blog, because the next few minutes in the truck she was able to listen in on.)

I have to admit, I dropped the phone. And I'm not ashamed of it! I had a soft-ball size moth perched on my neck, and according to Paul it was getting ready to draw blood!

Paul immediately went into cat-man mode again. And above the screams, I started yelling, "Get the phone!" There is just absolutely no way that I would ever be able to describe the next few moments. There was insanity in the cab of that truck.

We pulled over again, found the phone (I just listened for the laughter coming from the phone). And once again began to asses the damages. I was still unable to find the moth, even though it had almost killed us twice. (Not that a moth could actually cause any physical damage, but because I almost wrecked from Paul trying to swat the moth and hitting me instead... multiple times.)

Paul spent the rest of the trip completely wrapped from head to toe in a blanket, even though it was the middle of the summer. The only thing showing was an opening for his mouth, so that he could breathe and/or bite the moth. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, even though we still had to make it the rest of the way across Virginia and North Carolina.

It is truly an event that I will never forget. Even though I try really, really hard.