Bed Bugs!

First of all, let me declare: eww.

For the past month or so, I have been waking up each morning with hives. Nothing major, just one or two new itchy red bumps each day. I figured maybe I was allergic to my room mate's detergent that she uses on her sheets (I sleep in her bed while she is out of the country) or maybe the cats had fleas. Search as I might, I could find no sign of fleas on the cats. My next thought was spiders and I searched the bedroom, under the mattress and behind the bed. No trace of web or eight legged beasty. So for the past week or two I gave up and mostly accepted the odd occurence of itchy bumps.

That is, until tonight. I was sitting in bed reading a few hours ago when I look down and what do I see crawling across the white sheets? A small, round, reddish-brown bug! I jumped out of bed and immediately went to my friend the internets. Lo and behold, I have bed bugs. Ewwww! Zombie bugs sleeping in my bed and sucking my blood...

I can't find any bed bug specific pesticides so I sprayed the mattress with insect repellent. Tomorrow I will strip the bed, wash everything, and vaccuum the mattress. For the time being, looks like I will be sleeping on the couch.

Ew.

Strange thing is, I almost feel bad for killing the little buggers. Goes along with my everything has a right to live and etc. But damn it if that right doesn't feel diminished when they are trying to feast on me... I guess the least I can do is try to kill them humanely.

Did I mention ewww?

Speaking of eww, want to know how these creepy crawlies breed? The males have a harpoon like penis that spears through the females abdomen and injects their semen straight into her body cavity. Talk about barbaric! Maybe I don't feel so bad about exterminating them after all... ((actually when you think about it evolutionarily, it's just damn cool.))

But still... ew.