Bugged Out

Let me explain how bed bugs came into my life.

It all started with my friend Joe. He lives in kind of a slummy apartment building in Jamaica, Queens. Joe’s not actually the source of the bugs, it’s the family who live in the apartment above him. Not to stereotype but the family is of Middle Eastern descent, and I’m only saying that because the rise in bed bug infestations in New York City is directly related to the increase of international travel.

The bugs crawled downstairs into my buddy’s apartment and he had to get rid of his bed and throw out a lot of stuff that was cluttering up his bedroom. Joe had to wash all his clothes with some expensive special laundry detergent and cover himself from head to toe with some prescription cream.

About three months ago, he said the bed bug problem was under control after his landlord sprayed some chemicals and sealed up big cracks in the apartment walls. Like an idiot, I saw no problem coming over when he invited me.

But after the third visit I began to itch in his living room. I figured it was a mosquito bite because a whitish bump had formed on my arm. Little did I know that the bugs would follow me home, either on my clothing or my bag.

Soon I began waking up in the middle of the night itching like crazy. There were little red stains on my bed sheets and pillow cases. The next night I actually saw one of the bugs…on my arm. Ewwwww.

I don’t have the heart to tell my friend of six years that visiting him gave me bed bugs. I looked up bed bugs on the Internet and remembered some of the shit he told me about the bed bugs, the symptoms of the bites and how to deal with them. The bugs were even biting his cat, and the cat as a result was going crazy, viciously attacking my friend and any other people visiting until he finally called the City and they picked up the cat and put it to sleep.

I have to keep the light on at night if the biting gets real bad. They hate the light and only come out of their hiding places when the room is dark. Now when I wake up from being bitten continuously, I do a quick inspection of my sheets and pillows, pick up any bugs I find (and I usually find a few) with a wad of tissue and flush the tissues down the toilet.

On the bright side, the itching and the bumps do go away after a few minutes. I’ve heard of cases where people develop very bad allergic reactions to bed bug bites.

Now that I’ve told my background story, I invite readers to add their own tales of bed buggery.