You have no idea how much damage one moth can do.

Last night when we retired and were each reading in bed, Elsbeth announced that there was a good-sized moth fluttering around her reading light.

I was dismayed because I thought there was no possible way for a moth to get in the house. He can't get through the tiny holes in the window screen. And though it seemed as big as a sparrow as I watched her wave her hand at it, trying to deliver a decisive blow, I pointed out that moths don't eat polyester or cotton clothes and that only their babies make holes in your woolens.

She was still intent on smacking the winged intruder so she paid no attention to my profound knowledge of moths.

So I offered to help her and handed her my magazine to use as a more lethal swatter. I watched her swinging it like a crazed tennis player and when her fluttery target landed on the ceiling to catch a breath, I offered to get up and give it the old college try.

I took the magazine from her, stood on the bed and swung. OOPS, it was only pretending to be asleep and it took off for her bed lamp again, round and round, up and down.

I could not help myself. I whipped the magazine like crazy and, of course, I smacked the reading lamp and the glass bulb protector flew off and the lamp fell over and knocked the box of Kleenex off the table.

Mr. Moth landed on the ceiling again and I gave it a swipe once more with my now-battered New Yorker and again it saw me coming.

Elsbeth was now without a reading lamp and I paused in my pursuit to think things out. If it was indeed a guy moth he couldn't lay eggs in her cashmere sweater anyway, so why worry about it, but decided to not question the moth's gender.

What I needed was a high-tech gizmo that made a noise like a wool sweater that could zap him when he got hungry, but that would take some doing at my work bench. So I decided to throw a pillow at him as he sat down on the frame of a picture over the bed.

It worked. It also knocked the picture off the wall and it fell down behind the bed -- but the moth dodged. I found him dozing on the wall across the room.

With no reading lamp, she gave up and went to sleep. Not Elsbeth. The dratted moth.