When I came into work today, Chalice almost immediately asked me if we’d had any bug problems, and then showed me her arms and neck, where she had a number of large, really red, painful-looking insect bites, and explained that she has them everywhere and has been getting bitten by something in her sleep lately. We think it’s bedbugs (or nankinmushi in Japanese), and Chalice commented that when they were in Korea, the place they stayed during their last night wasn’t very clean, and maybe they picked them up there–and that she’s had run-ins with bedbugs before, and the same thing happened, and they waited until spring to “hatch” and attack, which seems to be what happened here.
I explained the situation to our boss (and to the rest of the ladies in the BOE, who listen in on everything), and she wanted Chalice to go to the doctor, but Chalice disagreed, saying that it’d be better to get rid of the bugs first, or her bites will only get worse. She then recommended that Chalice go buy a bug bomb and use it during the day.
This afternoon, after my Double-Length Class of DOOM (they had me teach the whole school–all 9 students–how to sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver at the start of class), I returned to the BOE and was getting myself a cup of coffee to wake myself up after the very doze-inducing taxi ride down the mountain, when I saw a tiny red speck scuttling across the hot water heater. I looked more closely–it only had 6 legs, so it wasn’t some rare kind of spider, and it was blood-red. I flicked it onto the counter and squished it (vegetarian-haters, don’t you dare start with me), and the, er, remains were the exact color of human blood. We think it was a stowaway from whatever’s in Chalice’s apartment.
We’re all kind of on high alert now. I’ve been jumping at every little twinge in case I picked up some stowaways of my own. I’ve been a little itchy today, but I think that’s from something in the air in my new place, and I’m wearing clothes that spent the night in there (though I’m wondering what’ll happen when I actually relocate there permanently–I have this current place through the 7th, and though I pretty much have to clean it all today due to my water/power getting stopped this week, I still have time to move my sundries downstairs; we had dinner last night for Hannah’s brother who’s in town, and everyone trooped straight up here afterwards and moved all my big items down to the new place in about 20 minutes flat; it was just amazing, and I owe them a HUGE debt). At any rate–I hope this all ends well, and easily.