SLEEP TIGHT

Gentle Readers,

I have a long-standing fear of bugs.

In fact, my fear goes back as far as I can remember, and I remember a lot (this is a warning to some people). As a small child, I had nightmares that bugs were crawling on me.

They stopped when I was a teenager, but when I was an adult, they started again, and after a nightmare about red ants crawling on me, I realized why I had the bugmares. It was because I was so itchy that it made me dream that something was crawling on me.

You see, I've had eczema since I was a baby, it subsided during my teenage years, and then returned - as it often does - when I reached my form of adulthood.

Although I've been plenty itchy this summer because of mosquito bites and the rashes that crop up on my always-fragile skin, I didn't have a summer bugmare until about two weeks ago when I woke up believing that bedbugs were crawling all over me.

After all, every time I turn on the news I hear about another posh place in New York City that had to be closed while they get rid of the bedbugs. Horror stories about bedbugs in hotels abound. Exterminators have scary advertisements that scream BEDBUGS ARE BACK.

Well, it just so happens I have been to a lot of those fancy-schmancy places in New York that now have bed bugs and I have been there within the past 10 to 15 years. I have also stayed in a number of hotels, and at one time or another, I employed an exterminator in houses I used to own.

I have every reason in the world to fear bedbugs.

Anyway, I did my bedbug research (I've already provided two links for you as you may have noticed, should you care to join me in my bedbugmares), and I've been watching for signs of bedbugs. Do I have even more bites that usual? No. Do I find little smears of blood on my sheets? No.

So I don't think I have bedbugs, yet, but if I get them, you will be the first to know.

After the exterminator.

Infinities of love,

Lola