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December 9, 2006

Gears of Bedbugs

It's been a while since I complained about the bedbugs; really, we've reached something of a detente

So I bought the Gears of War game last week. Couldn't be helped: (1) I didn't own any murdering games yet, and what's really the point with the next-gen consoles if you don't have a murdering game; (2) the commercial had the creepy Tears For Fears cover from the Donnie Darko movie, and well, I'm a sucker for clever marketing; (3) you can appreciate my passion for murdering digital representations of insects. Now is not the time to talk about the game, save for sharing the its goofy backstory, which feels especially relevant round these parts of late.

That is, the setup with Gears of War is that there were all these killer insect monsters hiding beneath the Earth's surface who decide to pop out of the ground and conquer the humans. Chaos ensues, requiring much murdering of insect monsters (sometimes with your chainsaw bayonet, sometimes by calling in a a particle beam strike from space -- called the "Hammer of Dawn" -- the thrill of which has yet to wear off). Anyhoo, in the mythology of the game, the day the insects showed up and started killing humans is called "Emergence Day."

I've decided to co-opt said term in my descriptions of my bedbug saga. That is, I'd like to offer an update now that it's been two months and change since Emergence Day at my apartment.

Generally speaking, the bedbugs and I have reached something of a detente. I haven't seen one in a month. This does not convince me that they aren't here -- it just means that we've probably murdered a lot of them and the remaining critters have found their way to more clever hiding spots. I might even go so far as to observe that we've become somewhat symbiotic, except for the part where the malignant little bastards owe me a new bed -- and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to collect.

I'll admit, I was a little spooked for a month or so after Emergence Day. I was pretty much done with the bedroom, and was sleeping on an air mattress in the living room for a while. That was pretty much October. Then I went on the road for most of November, which was an excellent way to avoid the bedbug situation altogether. But when I finally returned to C@L, I figured I needed to try to get things a little more together. Of course, I certainly enjoyed sleeping with my face no more than 18 inches from the plasma TV, but after a certain point it seemed a bit extreme. Mostly that means that I needed to move back into the bedroom.

Which I did. I moved the trusty air mattress back into the bedroom, stuck it where the bed used to be, moved the coffee table back into position in the living room, and for the most part put my apartment back together. I still have some boxes and whatnot in the corner (I had to pack a bunch of stuff up to prep for the exterminators, and I'm not convinced I'm actually staying here that much longer), but the apartment looks pretty normal.

Normal is nice.

Of course, it didn't last. I woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday to a hissing sound and a slightly less comfortable air mattress beneath me. Yup. After two months of dedicated service, the air mattress failed. So I rolled to the couch. Luckily, the good people at Costco have a delightfully liberal return policy, and I was able to replace my air mattress with little hassle on Thursday night. Of course, by the time I got home and tried to inflate it (I had soccer so it was around 11:30), I guess it was past my neighbors' bedtime(s). That is, I start inflating it, and the clown downstairs starts pounding on the ceiling with a broom or something. BOOOOOOO. But I was too spent to even muster up the will for an argument, so I left it and marched back out to the couch.

Sigh.

So the general plan is that I'm going to try to move...at some point. I have a good deal on my lease, but I don't think I'm really going to feel confident about things until I set up shop somewhere else. Certainly I'm not buying another bed until I'm sure the malignant little bastards are gone -- it's really not worth it, and the air mattress isn't so uncomfortable. Especially when Costco is willing to easily replace them. So yeah, I'm here until I can motivate myself to move. In the meantime, I sleep on the air mattress and murder digital insects.

Yup, it's a mad world.

Posted by thatkid at December 9, 2006 3:29 PM under C@L

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