HUMOR

Bed Bugs Are Showing Up In More Places Than Just Your Bed

They’re driving that car in front of you in the McDonald’s drive-thru.

Paris is battling an infestation of bloodsucking bedbugs on trains and in movie theaters… The pests have been spotted on public transport and in movie theaters in the French capital. — Lara O. Reilly, Insider.com

Ten years ago, nobody talked about bed bugs. Now if you stop at a Super 8 for more than five minutes, you’re bringing home a herd of bed bugs that will force you to burn down your house and move to another state.

Despite their name, bed bugs are showing up in more places than just your bed.

You know how in the drive-thru lane you always end up behind a car driven by somebody who acts like they’ve never seen a McDonald’s menu before and takes five minutes to order a four-piece Chicken McNugget?

And you sit there making dramatic gestures with your hands hoping they see you in their sideview mirror, but they don’t because they’re studying the menu like it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls and you keep saying “IT’S McDONALD’S FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!” really loud in your car with the window open but they don’t hear you because they’re yelling “DO YOU HAVE BARBECUE SAUCE?” into a bush because they pulled up too far.

That’s because that person is actually a bed bug.

Bed bugs have become so ubiquitous that one in four people is actually a bed bug.

You know that person who’s standing right in front of the thing you need to get at the grocery store and you try to wait patiently for them to move, but patience is like, not your thing, so you start shifting from foot to foot and eventually you’re staring at them like Charles Manson until they move?

That person is a bed bug.

You know how when you’re at Starbucks in the summer and you need an Americano like a vampire needs blood, but there’s an entire middle-school soccer team ahead of you buying extra-whip frappuccinos while your ears are assaulted by piercing squeals of youthful joy and you think, “WHO LETS CHILDREN DRINK COFFEE?”

Bed bugs, that’s who.

Or when you’re waiting in line at the bank and every single person in front of you either has rolled coins, needs a cashier’s check, or wants to open a new account?

Those people are all bed bugs.

The easiest way to spot a bed bug is to watch for the trail they leave behind (hamburger wrappers, paper coffee cups) or their distinctive “musty odor” which is a mixture of sweat and whatever their children have asked them to hold for them.

The only way to avoid bed bugs is to stay in your home and never come out. And definitely don’t go to Paris, which ruins my plans for the weekend.