No, really... don't let the bed bugs bite. In New York right now it is no joke. Bed bugs have become an epidemic that isn't going away. I first saw a poster for bed bug awareness last year in Times Square on a massive billboard. I remember it very clearly because it was a huge picture of a magnified bed bug. It was also the first time I thought, "Wait, they really exist...it's not just a cute saying parents tell kids before sleep?"
With a little research, I learned this insect is about the size of an apple seed and not the size of the 14-story building as I saw in Times Square. They like beds because the can hideout all day in the fibers then sneak their way up when they sense your body heat at night. And this is when they strike, when you are in bed, asleep and of no threat to them. They aren't stupid like mosquitoes, they suck your blood when there is minimum risk of you slapping at them. What's most disturbing is they can live for up to a year without feeding on your tasty hemoglobin. This makes them basically indestructible without actually throwing out the mattress, burning the sheets and praying they didn't get into your closets or even worse, your couch too.
So bad has this situation become that it seems people are treating it as the new herpes. Once you've got it--you've got it. The stigma stays with you for the rest of your days. Just the other night, I heard my over boisterous neighbors on the street yelling out (yelling is their form of communication, it’s a funny language pattern---talking seems to be out of the question), "guuuurrrl... You got beeeeed bugz, haaaaa haaaa bitch!!!" Oh and to clarify, this young lady was laughing at, not with, the girl who had been infected. I felt bad for that scarlet lettered harlet.
Not wanting to be scarlet lettered ourselves, one night Kev and I actually turned around and went back home as we were heading towards a movie theatre to see Eat, Pray, Love. Sure it may sounds like we are overreacting (we often feed off of each others weaknesses, and can easily become agoraphobic if we are allowed to spin out of control), but if you take in account businesses such as AMC, Hollister, and even Bill Clinton's office have been shut down for days because of infestation, it becomes a real threat. One, I don't want bed bugs, but even more so, I don't want to sleep on/with the chemical pesticides that are used to kill the bed bugs. I don't trust the solution enough to risk the problem.
It's gotten to the point where I don't want my fibrous clothes like wool, touching other people fibrous clothes for fear of hitchhikers. Imagine my fears as I go on background calls and am forced to hang my stuff up on racks with other people’s clothes. I told you extras were humdingers... you know 90% of them have been infected with the new herpes and I don't want that percentage going up with me.
To add to my fear, just this morning as I was walking to the subway station on my street, there was a couch and a mattress on the curb with "BED BUGS" loudly written on both with red marker. Red means danger!!! Had I known this breeding ground was there, I would have taken a different street. Or, at the very least I would have inconspicuously changed the side of street I was on as if I saw a gang ahead. You can never be too safe; I don't know how far they can jump... do you?
I wish I could end this blog entry with a happy ending such as, "And then they all died... The End." But unfortunately, I'm gonna have to leave with, "Be afraid, be very afraid!!!" And don't be surprised if you come over my house and I make you do a Dustin Hoffman type scrub down from Outbreak before entering.
