No we don't have them (knock on wood, EVERYONE!!). But Seth finally told me last night that there's a rumor going around our building that someone downstairs reported bed bugs. He didn't tell me for a while because I am deathly scared of bed bugs. I've never had them (knock on wood, EVERYONE, PLEEEEASE!!!!). I'm almost as scared of them as I am of crickets. I hate crickets. Mostly because of a traumatic experience as a child. I woke up (I think I was 3 or something, already in a big girl bed) to the loudest chirping ever. I mean, LOUD. Right by my ear loud.I screamed bloody murder and scurried out of bed to run to my parents room. I wasn't sure where in my room the cricket was, and at the last minute, right before running out of my room, I thought the cricket might be in the doorway. So...I decided to jump through the doorway, and in doing so, missed the open doorway and jumped into the wooden panneled side of the doorway. It really hurt. But it didn't phase me. I just kept running.
My parents had heard my scream and met me in the living room.
"There's a cricket! A cricket's in my room! Help me! Help!" I pleaded.
My parents walked me into my room and turned the light on. My dad found the cricket, which was nestled into the stuffed animals to the left of my bed. My dad asked me if I had seen the cricket.
"Uh-huh," I weepily nodded, and really thought I had.
"How big was the cricket?" my dad asked, with a slight grin, which at the time, I didn't understand at all. This wasn't funny,
"It was this big!" and I spread my little 3-year-old arms as wide as they would go.
I didn't sleep by myself for weeks. I couldn't. There might be a cricket in my bed. I woke my parents up night after night to sleep with them. Sometimes my mom brought her alarm clock into my room and slept with me. One night, they grew tired of the shenanagin, and tried locking me out of their room, in hopes I'd just give up and go to bed.
Nope. I pounded and wailed and pleaded. And I got my way.
Finally, my parents had the exterminator come out. My mom told me that this man was going to go everywhere in our house and kill all the crickets.
"Really?" I asked. I couldn't believe it. I was so happy.
I followed the exterminator around the entire time and made sure he went through the entire house.
That night I slept like a baby....all by myself. I slept on my side, hugging my knees to my chest, curled into a very tight ball, just in case the man missed a cricket in my bed.
So you see, the idea of bed bugs thoroughly scares the bageebees out of me. Seth checked last night. The coast was clear, and I slept fine. Then this morning, who appeared at our door, but TWO exterminators! Glorious!
9 comments:
Roaches. They're the ones I really hate. Other bugs can be a bit creepy (hairy spiders and the like), but it's roaches that really make my skin crawl.
All roaches must die.
I'll ask my six year old if it's a cricket she is thinking of next time she comes into my room at 3 am.
oh my goodness... I did not know that beg bugs were real.
Bill, yes, all roaches must die indeed.
TrueV, it could be the boogie man....but crickets are definitely scarier, and actually exist.
KD, I didn't either. Until I came to NY. I thought it was just what you said when you wished someone a "Good night. Don't let the bed bugs bite." Turns out they really meant that.
I'm reminded my old apartment in Cincinnati. The complex was a student/illegal immigrant hovel complete with occastional broken windows, heat that didn't get turned on until December and lots of roaches in the summer. Fortunately, the people on my floor were clean enough that we didn't get too many roaches wandering into my wife and my particular apartment. However, the complex was so bad overall that on some summer nights that it was hard to avoid stepping on the boogers when coming home in the evening. I finally got so fed up with prancing around them to avoid tracking roach guts into our apt. that I bought some bug spray myself and became the apt. building exterminator. If I waited too long between treatments, I could count up to 50 dead cockroaches around the front entrance in the days following the treatment. These were callously kicked off the sidewalk without anything resembling a proper Christian funeral. Sometimes I wonder if it was worse to have the little Mexican kids walking barefoot on Raid doused sidewalk entrances than to have them playing around cockroaches.
MB
Aaaargh. I hate crickets as well and have a small infestation of them in my building here at work, but I've blogged plenty about it.
I hate roaches too, despise the things.
Bed bugs are making a comeback I've seen several news stories on how to check for them at hotels and such. They had died down for a time but are now disgracing us with their presence again.
Oh, suddenly I feel really bad about all the times I sent Jackson back to his room when he came to our bed in the middle of the night! I remember being so terrified in bed once, because I heard a cricket in the room. I couldn't even get out of the bed--See you're not alone! ;)
MB, oh my. My apartment in Waco was like that, except with crickets, which I'll admit, isn't near as bad. They swarmed the light outside the building, and we'd hear them all in the air conditioning vents. My roomate and I used to be up at crazy hours of the morning with bug spray, fearfully walking around the apt in our PJ's and heels. (Cuz those were the nearest shoes and we didn't want to step on a cricket.)
Amy, last year sometime, there was a crazy outbreak of them here in the city. It was all over the news. I was at an audition last year and saw a girl COVERED with bed bug bites. It was a dance call, so she had to wear a leotard. Her back and arms and legs were covered with red welps. Ugh.
Narci, good to know. Crickets just give me the heebie jeebies.
Oh! I really hate bed bugs bites, they're really a nightmare to me. So pesky, itchy and irritating to my nerves.
Post a Comment