Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

Normally, this is almost like a Grimm's Fariy Tale saying from the "old days". I found I could not say this to any young person in the 21st Centry, they have nightmares and worry themselves sick. My own grandson freaks at the thought of bed bugs, I have only said this to him once. He worried for six months and I had to wash his bed sheets more frequently.

When I was a kid, this was what parents and grandparents said when us kids were going to bed or being tucked in at night. "Good night, don't let the bed bugs bite." I never gave it a second thought as a child.

Yesterday, I was told to go home due to a "possible" bed bug scare that quickly turned into minor hysteria. A young lady came to the office, yes, this old geezer works in an office, who may or may not have bed bugs. Both the staff that interacted with her were sent home for precaution. Take a shower, change our cloths. I could not breath a word of this to my grandson, who I wish never had to worry about such things but after peeking at the World Wide Web, I found that that bedbugs are quite serious and harder to rid once they "bed in" any building or home.

This seems to be due to regulations on pesticides. Long gone are the days when I ran behind the industrial sized insect sprayer loaded on the back of a flat bed truck. My friends and I played hide and seek in the thick white clouds of DDT being sprayed in our neighborhood in an attempt to cut down the mosquitoe population, until we were so loopy we laid on the freshly DDT sprayed lawns to recover.

It's a trade off, as many things are in life. To keep our water free of pesticides, save endangered insects and amphibians the governement has regulated our best interest and that of our grandchildren but creeping up behind to reclaim their place in our homes, offices and yards are the onslaught of infestations we thought were erradicated.

This isn't a cautionary tale, just a ramble or a rant. As you tuck your children into bed tonight and tell them to sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite, it is my hope you don't go onto the world wide web to read how these vampire bugs; who when not feeding are the size of the period at the end of this sentence but within minutes is the size of this 0; are now forever a part of our lives, again. Since apparently, they were never really gone. They were secretly planning their invasions, biding their time quite patiently, just waiting for the regulation of pesticides that kept them at bay.