Good Night, Sleep Tight

Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

A few weeks ago, on the evening before my anniversary, the evening before we were supposed to go away for a few days to celebrate our anniversary, I was woken up at 2 a.m. by my daughter. She was quite upset, although not nearly as upset as I was to be woken up at that hour out of a dead sleep.

I hustled her out of the bedroom before she could wake up her father. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a bedbug in my room.”

I was obviously not doing back flips at this point. I can’t remember ever being capable of doing back flips. I was also pretty sure she was wrong & was carrying on over a beetle. “I doubt it’s a bedbug.”

“It is. I captured it and looked it up online. I’m sure it is a bedbug.”

At that hour, there wasn’t anything we were going to do about it. I told her that, although probably not in my most pleasant and reassuring voice. I told her to sleep in the guest room in the meantime. She wasn’t going anywhere near a bed. I may have said something like, “Fine. Stay up all night. I really don’t give a damn what you do. I am going to bed.”

I then laid in bed thinking about how we were supposed to leave early the next morning to go away. What if it was a bedbug? I’d have to call someone in to take care of this immediately. I was so looking forward to spending my anniversary with an exterminator rather than out with my husband. Would we have to call off the entire trip? How much was it going to cost to get an exterminator and a new mattress? Where did it come from and how many little friends were in my house? What if they were in my room??

A couple of hours later, I was wide awake. I decided to go back downstairs and get myself a nice shot of Limoncello to help me sleep. Theresa was still up, sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop looking at bug pictures. “Mom, come here and look at this picture. It’s not a bedbug. It’s a weevil.”

As much as I hate looking at bugs, I looked at the captive and then looked at the photo. Yep. Absolutely positive ID. It was a weevil. “Weevils wobble but they don’t fall down,” she told me.

I poured us both a shot & we went up to bed, quite relieved.