In which our heroine hires a beagle named Champ to ruin her day.
Nutshell: bed bugs.
Translation: life as we know it has come to a crashing end.
After forty five minutes of sobbing, I spent the afternoon sealing textiles in plastic, packing my refugee bag, lugging said bag to exile in Manhattan, then laudering and disinfecting the contents.
Now it is nigh on two am and I find myself alone on a sofa in the Ivory Tower, cursing the gods. My apartment—sorry, Peter, our apartment—was pristine. I did everything right. I dusted, I swept, I mopped. I kept up with clutter. I disinfected with certified organic nontoxic substances. And the little fuckers marched right through the front door and set up camp anyway, laughing their insect heina laughter at my hubris.
(Oh, yeah, and they bit my feet, too.)
The inspector was very kind. He smiled, I signed on the dotted line. He told me not to panic. But he also warned me not to cough up the 1500 bucks it will cost to debugify if my sorry ass landlord won't treat the building itself. Because, you see, the source is somewhere in the walls, where nothing short of a nuclear event will stop them from coming back.
Raise your hand if you saw this one coming. After all, this is the very landlord who couldn't get the heat sorted out until March, the one who had the balls to charge full rent all winter because, hell, he offered us a cinderblock space heater and a hotplate, didn't he?
There's a cheeky bit of irony here. Remember all those months I spent longing for sanctuary, for a place to call my own? I planted my tubers. They miscarried. Maybe I was never meant to lay down roots. The nomad wind has shifted, and I sink or swim by my ability to let it—all of it—go.
My acrimoniously divorced parents rarely agree on anything. But the transtextual telephone family triangle has united on this one front: We know a sign when one slaps us upside the head.
Nutshell: bed bugs.
Translation: life as we know it has come to a crashing end.
After forty five minutes of sobbing, I spent the afternoon sealing textiles in plastic, packing my refugee bag, lugging said bag to exile in Manhattan, then laudering and disinfecting the contents.
Now it is nigh on two am and I find myself alone on a sofa in the Ivory Tower, cursing the gods. My apartment—sorry, Peter, our apartment—was pristine. I did everything right. I dusted, I swept, I mopped. I kept up with clutter. I disinfected with certified organic nontoxic substances. And the little fuckers marched right through the front door and set up camp anyway, laughing their insect heina laughter at my hubris.
(Oh, yeah, and they bit my feet, too.)
The inspector was very kind. He smiled, I signed on the dotted line. He told me not to panic. But he also warned me not to cough up the 1500 bucks it will cost to debugify if my sorry ass landlord won't treat the building itself. Because, you see, the source is somewhere in the walls, where nothing short of a nuclear event will stop them from coming back.
Raise your hand if you saw this one coming. After all, this is the very landlord who couldn't get the heat sorted out until March, the one who had the balls to charge full rent all winter because, hell, he offered us a cinderblock space heater and a hotplate, didn't he?
There's a cheeky bit of irony here. Remember all those months I spent longing for sanctuary, for a place to call my own? I planted my tubers. They miscarried. Maybe I was never meant to lay down roots. The nomad wind has shifted, and I sink or swim by my ability to let it—all of it—go.
My acrimoniously divorced parents rarely agree on anything. But the transtextual telephone family triangle has united on this one front: We know a sign when one slaps us upside the head.
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2 comments:
Wait, bedbugs?? Motherfuckers. I am so sorry. I'm glad I left town, that was goin' round.
But hey it's perfect now, to have this nuisance occur when your calling is singing in your ear. You can be almost unfazed.
(Though it is the worst f'ing thing in the world- and it has nothing to do with you. Just God and Satan having a beer, tossing this little cosmic joke at you, cuz they know it'll make you laugh with them.)
I'm so sorry.
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