I was laying in my bed in my dorm room eating freeze dried candy when a moth flew into my room. Now, I have quite a fear of bugs, and the moth startled me. I twisted around to find something to squish the moth with, and in the process spilled the entire bag of candies onto the bed and my blanket. A great deal of it also fell in the space between my bed and the wall. If you know anything about freeze dried stuff, you know that it is super crumbly. So now I have a moth in my room, crumbs on my sheets, crumbs on my blanket, and a mess on the floor in an inconvenient to reach spot. I moved my bed, got out the vacuum and cleaned up the mess, changed my sheets, and moved my bed back into place. After I was done, I spotted the moth on the wall, sitting as if it had watched everything that just happened. Without hesitation I grabbed the nearest tissue box and squished it.
"This is your fault," I said to the moth as I tossed it's smeared remains into my garbage can. "You caused a mess far bigger than yourself."
Sometimes people get mad when I squish bugs instead of letting them go free, but I felt entirely justified in this decision. If not for that moth, I would not have gotten started and made such a mess. Additionally, the moth was trespassing on private property. One could argue that it was just a bug, and therefore had no knowledge of rules. I argue that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. Moths are also known to feed on fabric and clothing, so I had reason to believe that the moth intended to cause further harm to my property.
Sometimes we make messes bigger than ourselves, and we must face the consequences.
