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Rewind about 6 years. We had this loaf of whole grain bread that got past date (as will happen) yet remained curiously mold free. Just for fun, Paul wondered how long it would take before signs of decay/corruption would take place. So it ended up on top of a cabinet. A year goes by. It simply looked a bit shruken. Mummified, if you will. Two years. Occasionally we noted that it was still not in bad shape, and affectionately dubbed it ‘the experiment’. It occupied an honored position atop the fridge cabinet.

On another note, in the past year or two we noticed that occasionally, we had this problem with certain food items in one of the cabinets–even in bags still sealed from the store, if it was grain or nuts or rice, and we had it long, it would seem to grow webs and small worms in the bag (longer than that, and it was full of small moths). Ick. At this point we’d throw out just about everything in the cabinets unless it was in a thick, sealed plastic bin.

The other day, Paul made this horrifying observation: 3 of those little worms CRAWLING ACROSS THE KITCHEN CEILING. This is a job for shop vac…wait a few hours, a few more. Ugh. Emptied the cabinets again. I thought maybe the damn moths had laid eggs in the recessed lights or something.

My mom, being generally more willing to climb on top of the fridge than I am, today (during preparations for Thanksgiving dinner), found out that, plastic boring buggers that they are, those moths had invaded ‘the experiment’, which was now covered with little hatching cocoons. The good news is that we vacuumed up all the remaining worms and can rest secure knowing they’re not living in the ceiling/floor. Sadly, ‘the experiment’ is no more. While we are generally interested in science, forensic entomology is not something we want to mess with in the house.

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