The Apartment Saga: De Bug

So I have recently been cured of caring what other people think.

OK.

We stay with Apartment B. Our apartment building is being completely renovated, which is nice because everything is new. What's not so nice is that construction on the building continues 7 days a week. They're behind.

I go home and pack and itinerize the move. You see, itiineraries are necessary when living with an A.D.D. man. Especially when our A.D.D. friend offers to help with the move so he can bum a free trip to New York City off of us. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Couldn't have done it without him. He and Seth drove the moving truck to New York City while I flew with my parents. I'm not complaining at all.

The two A.D.D. men arrived with their itinerary earlier than scheduled, and the Super of the building (which up here is the guy that fixes everything when it breaks), who is in charge of the renovations , made all of his workers help us move our boxes up three flights of stairs. It was a good move on his part, because now, when the Hispanic men yell and scream and sing at the top of their lungs at 7 o'clock in the morning, we can't get too mad because they all made our move-in bearable. Or when they bang so hard on the floor above us that debris falls from the ceiling onto our brand new sleeper sofa, we can't get too mad. Or when we find out they're going to add a sixth floor to our building, or when they don't have the laundry facility finished downstairs so I have to haul ass with two tons laundry up a couple of blocks to the laundromat, or when we don't get our UPS mail because they haven't installed the call box by the front door, or when they turn off the water without telling us, or when they randomly decide to tinker around with the cable cords somewhere and we have no internet for a daywe try not to get too mad.

But last week came the straw that broke the camels back.

I found a bed bug in our apartment.

It was Friday morning. The night before, our next door neighbor relayed the news that a girl on the third floor thought she found a bed bug in her apartment. After the news circulating about the bed bugs on the first floor (which had been exterminated), we were beside ourselves. This meant they were crawling up the walls or were already in the walls. That was it. We were getting out of this place. We thoroughly checked our mattress and clothes and saw nothing. No bugs.

The next morning we woke up with no bites. I got out of bed, showered, and began getting ready for the day. I sat down on our bed, and already cautious of creepy crawly critters, I looked down at the sheets on which I was sitting, and lo and behold a little tick-like thing was scurrying toward me. I jumped up, cried, "Seth, Seth, Seth," pointed, and almost cried. We captured the bed bug alive and held him hostage in a plastic baggy.

We looked around for more but found none.

Nevertheless, we marched our bed bug, whom I nicknamed "Fred", around town in his plasitc baggy as we looked at new apartments, and then to our management office. We kindly demanded the immediate extermination of our apartment and a place to stay for the night. Thankfully, they took care of us. An exterminator came to our room, whose name is Michael. Michael is Jamaican. He stepped inside the hobbit hole and asked for us to show him the bug. We gave him the plastic baggy and he set it under the light, examining the specimen inside the bag. After several silent and suspenseful seconds of intense study, Michael, with eyes cast downward looking grimly at our Fred, said softly after a quick nod:

"Dis is de bug."

continuing TO BE CONTINUED