Mothballs are small balls of chemical pesticide and deodorant sometimes used when storing clothing and other articles susceptible to damage from mold or moth larvae (especially clothes moths like Tineola bisselliella).
Funding issues caused the Florida Department of Transportation to mothball its construction plans for over a decade, but when the plan was revived, the changing demographics of the neighborhoods impacted by construction (an area with a predominantly white population in the 1960s became an area with a predominantly African-American and Hispanic population in the 1980s).
The competing Davie Yards Incorporated in Lauzon, QC experienced similar financial difficulty and spent much of the decade in mothball status.
A Common Grackle picked one out, extended its left wing and rubbed the mothball up and down the length of the shaft of each of the secondary feathers.
Although the maneuver resulted in a reduction of vehicle performance, it was the only way to reach the required deployment orbit from Kennedy Space Center (originally, the flight had been slated to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, until the shuttle launch facilities there were mothballed in 1989).