A moth in my bathroom taught me this harsh lesson recently.

I was going to take a shower when I noticed it in the shower stall. At first, seeing a small brown lump on the floor, I thought it was a piece of rubbish.

But part of my mind considered that it might be a moth.

Even as I started to turn on the shower, a few options flashed through my mind.

• Investigate it.
• Heck care it. Just let it wash down the drain.
• Clear it or it will clog up the drain cover.
• Scare it away in case it’s a moth cos I don’t want to drown it.

As I mulled over my options casually, not really caring very much really, I turned on the shower.

And then turned it off abruptly again.

I really didn’t want to drown a moth. If it were a moth, it would definitely get wet and then get stuck to the bathroom floor and eventually follow the flow of water to the drain cover.

I bent down and looked at it.

It was a moth! And quite a pretty one. Medium brown with pretty dark brown patterns around the edges of its wings.

It fluttered weakly once and then stopped. It looked dead. I couldn’t be sure if the flutter was due to my movement or because it was alive.

“Boo!” I said to it, hoping it would get scared and fly off.

Nothing. It remained motionless.

I scrunched up a bunch of toilet paper, then gently picked up the moth with the toilet paper.

When I turned the toilet paper around to look at it, I saw it had clung its legs around the folds of the paper. But it was still motionless.

Not quite knowing how to deal with it, I placed the whole ball in the rubbish bin, with the moth facing up. I hoped it was still alive and would fly off to safety by itself.

I went to take my shower.

And that was when it struck me that the moth’s prettiness had saved its life, if it were alive to begin with.

I have washed lesser insects that are small, puny and ugly, down the drain, without thinking. It’s like those insects deserve to die because they’re ugly.

I might even allow a plain or ugly-looking moth to die, but I couldn’t allow a pretty moth to die.

I am so shallow!! =(

And I think this applies to people in some ways. We have a tendency to subconsciously treat attractive people with more respect and care, as if less attractive people deserved less.

I often hear people cursing other people when inconvenienced.

“Ugly bitch! Block my way and make me miss my train! I hope you fall down!”

I think people would be less likely to curse if the person blocking them were an Angelina Jolie lookalike.

It’s so unfair and it made me sad thinking about this.

I felt guilty for all the times I had killed insects because they weren’t pretty. But I think I will probably do it again because ugly insects gross me out.

By the time I finished my shower, the moth had disappeared from the ball of tissue paper. Yay! It had flown off to safety. Or so I hoped. I couldn’t see it anywhere in the bathroom.

I hope Morty didn’t eat it.