What You Cannot Predict

Sometimes, no matter what you do and how cautiously you prepare for disaster, you have to confront the biggest fear of all: not having control over others.

One of my two new roommates dragged his mattress out of his room into the parking lot this morning. After less than a minute, I knew why, and I wasn't very happy about it. You see... this roommate found this "free" mattress a few weeks before moving to the new apartment. He had been sleeping on it for over three months. It was to my dismay that he just NOW discovered it was INFESTED WITH BEDBUGS.

Yeah, I've seen it all now.

He had bites like a rash all over his back and arms, and was sad when I told him that he would need to do a hell of a lot more than just remove his mattress to get rid of them. "Oh, really?" he asked innocently... YES. Remove the box spring, too. YES, the bedding, and YES, the memory foam you had on top of the mattress that you cannot possibly wash. YES, you need to go to the store and buy a bug bomb and some spray and whatever else they have. NO, spraying the carpet down with Windex is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

This roommate is a great living example of why you should never smoke pot.

Several days later, I discover bed bugs in MY carpet. Fuck that. Roommate confrontation. Get the bug bombs. We're blowing the place.

I'm happy to report that one week later, after I have bombed, vacuumed and shampooed my carpet, diligently changed my sheets once a day and after countless hours of lost sleep worrying about every little tickle on my skin, I have not seen a live bug in my room.

I will say that I think I prefer the occasional flying cockroach over bedbugs. Happily.