Tera: "So, a little backstory before... Oh, um, excuse me. The hairy man in the dumpy clothing who manages our multidimensional Internet feed would like to have a word about this one."

(sigh) Thanks, Tera.

Some if you may know by now that I am presently living in Las Vegas and employed in a customer service position.

What you might not know (unless you've seen all of my rantings) is that this is the combo from Hell. Everyone that's ever had to work a register, a phone line, or anything else that involves frequent person-to-person interactions knows how downright demoralizing that can be -- how people can be so mean or so stupid as to absolutely suck any faith in humanity you may have had before right out of you.

And no human is on their worst behavior like a tourist -- like someone who has it in their head that "I am never coming back here ever again. Everything I say and do here will be without consequence." And Las Vegas -- Sin City -- is this times eleven. People come into THIS town with every intention of being the absolute worst they have ever been in their lives.

"VEGAS BABY!!! Let's gamble! Let's drink and drive! Let's get hookers! Let's do cocaine! Let's rob a liquor store! Let's murder a homeless person!"

This is what I deal with, day in and day out, and have been doing so for almost a decade as of my writing this.

It goes without saying that I have had many, many days where I feel like my humanity is slipping. I used to fancy myself the peace-loving tree-hugging hippie type. But this city? Ho boy, I have had some very, very dark thoughts since arriving here...

But it seems like, every time I have one of those days -- the absolute worst kind of day where I'm entertaining the absolute worst kind of thoughts, the same thing happens and gets me out of it.

A moth will get inside my home or my car somehow... And anywhere from ten minutes to my all-time record of sixteen hours later (I literally lost sight of it, had to give up and go to work, then saw it again only as I was about to go to bed), I'll have managed to trap it in something and release it back outside.

And that's when I'll have the thought: "No. You haven't lost your humanity. You're still the same old pacifist weenie you've always been. Vegas showed you that there are limitations to your compassion, but you haven't lost it. You're still that exact same person who can even feel care and concern for a moth."

Tera: "It's part of the reason I've always wanted to ad a moth Pokemon to the family. But, you know, that's one of those rare moments where all the Pokemon equivalents are NOT cuter than the real thing."

So when  Cotton Candy Bumble Bee revealed that she has a moth costume... Well, of course I had to petition Kiwi get one and show it off to Tera.

Tera: "Truth be told, I was bowing like that because I was hoping to get her to land on my nose." (shrugs) "I guess that's strictly a butterfly thing."

---

Pelipper is © Game Freak / Nintendo

Kiwi & artwork are ©  Cotton Candy Bumble Bee. Please favorite the original here.