Moth-eatin' Potential

So I'm in the anteroom of the pool, with a floor whose cerulean hue merely mimics the paler teal of the pool water, out beyond the doorway (unseen, but remembered). Swimming pools, those tiny mock diadems of suburbia that wink at you as you jet across America, as you subconsciously, or fervently, pray that a clear blue sky won't be an omen reminiscent of an apocalyptic September Tuesday morning. It is not the free urban pool up the hill from our house, the one with an occasional police presence, if only as a deterrent. It is up the road a piece. Yes, the suburbs. And, here, the deterrent is green, as in moola: three dollars for adults, two dollars for each kid. Cash as winnowing factor. The girls go left; I go right. They take a preswim shower; I do not, because I do not intend to swim. I just want to sit in the lounge chair (an amenity not provided, for lamentably obvious reasons, at the pool closer to home) and leisurely read The New York Times, the Sunday Times, on Father's Day. A guilty pleasure, guilt-free. But first Nature calls, perhaps triggered by the thought of water, perhaps by the echoic splashing of water only yards away, though still unseen, but surely smelt chlorinatedly. To answer Nature's call, being a man, I stand at a urinal. You would too, in my, um, position (HAHAHAhahaha). In mid-sentence, so to speak, I am slightly startled by a fluttering. No, it is not the arresting flutter of an old man's heart. Instead, I am startled by the wings of a moth, in the urinal. A beautiful brownish moth caught in the albino porcelain of wastewater preliminary pretreatment. I would have to report this as a personal first. I was a little concerned my winged creature would zero in on my exposed vulnerability.* So, I interrupted my paltry riverine contribution midstream, and switched to an adjacent urinal. Duty done, safely free of aerial attack, I chuckled to myself, squinted my eyes, spied the pool, and proceeded poolside, wondering what metaphor of moth-eaten and rusted desire had winged its way to my soul.

(For the record, the moth was nowhere to be seen on a return visit to the lavatory. Make what you wish of any of this.)

Laugh. Or . . .
Else.

* This is where Tony Soprano would interrupt and say, "Whaddaya tryin' to tell me? A moth tried to bite your pecker?"