infested

Remember when you were in elementary school and the school nurse would visit your class and inspect each child's head with a tongue depressor placed in one of her latex-glove-protected hands?

Remember how the kids found with lice were marked as dirty, as outcasts? Or maybe you were one of the unfortunately who hung their coats next to that of an unknown host or however else one gets such a nuisance. I wasn't one of those kids. I was lice free and felt free to judge those who weren't.

But something happened over the weekend, and I think I have an idea of how those loused kids felt.

I found a little bug crawling across my mattress a while back. I'd never seen anything like it. But, as I'd just recently been outside, I figured the little guy had hitched a ride. But then on Saturday morning I saw another. I didn't want to think what I was thinking. Later at Big-Bold-D and G-man's apartment, I sat down at the computer, went to Google Images and typed in "bed bugs."

It's disgusting. It's creepy. It can't be in my room. I borrowed a flash light from the boys and when back across the hall. I pulled the bed away from the wall, and my fears were realized. Along the wall was evidence of enough bug activity to make my stomach turn. (Big-Bold-D says this is why he makes it a policy never to look under or around his bed.)

I immediately began putting all of my bedding in huge, black trash bags. I called my apartment manager, who was out of town, but the maintenance guy said the exterminator was already scheduled to visit on Wednesday and that he'd add my apartment to the list. After about 20 phone calls to and from my dad, I went to the store for zip up allergy covers for my mattress and box springs.

Kcprogrammer and his sister happened to be near by and came to assist in damage control. We tore the bottom off of the box springs and saw evidence of past activity. That sucker went immediately to the curb. The next day, my dad cut down the box spring so it would fit in the trash bins. He said that while he saw old stuff, he hadn't seen any signs of recent activity. I don't know that this information was particularly comforting, but it got me thinking about where these buggers came from.

The possibilities:

1. They were already there when I moved in. They like to live in the crevices between carpeting and the wall, in cracks in the wall and in electrical sockets.
2. They traveled via apartment wiring from a neighboring apartment. To these bugs, hotels and apartments are the happening spots to be.
   
3. They hitched a ride from a college apartment. I'd put this one on the old Towers on campus more than our little place off of Florida St. Although the latter did have an ant issue. (The building neighboring the former had a roach issue.)
   
4. They followed me home from a trip. If this is the case, they could have originated in any of a number of places from here to California, North Dakota or Texas, and then there were my two trips to New York. And not to be left out: most of Western Europe and Singapore.

The last on the list is the most disconcerting because I'm about to go to Las Vegas for a week. I'm not looking forward to that hotel stay. Even if it is the Hilton.

Did you see that recent news story on the woman who stayed in this upscale hotel room, which was infested with bed bugs, which went home with her and proceeded to bite here a zillion times? Right, so my mind goes back to all those hotel, hostel and B&B rooms I've stayed in. I shudder. And then to think how long they were there in secret, showing no sign of existence. It's scary. But if it hadn't been for that story, I don't know that I would have even considered bed bugs. That's a nasty problem that other people--dirtier people--get, not me.

I write all this, not just because I love flagellating myself for you all, but because I want you to be aware. Check your bedding carefully. The only evidence on my bed (aside from the live critter walking across it) was found only by ripping the bottom of the box spring away. They're hiders. The shy away from light.

And I'm going to keep my new matteress and box spring (if I can bring myself to have a box spring--I'm really doubting the need for one) in those allergy covers that people use for dust mites. If tiny dust mites can't get through that protective bag then bed bugs won't be able to either.

This public service report has been brought to you by theCallowQueen who urges you to sleep responsibly.