germophobia...

and related matters!

So, yesterday, there was a story on my AOL welcome screen (shut up) about the resurgence of bedbugs. Being as full of poor judgment as the next person, I clicked on the link. Then, being also as suggestible as the next person, I sat there in my office and scratched my way through the article.

Now, I already knew about the resurgence of bedbugs, since round about Labor Day when all the students were moving back into town, there was an article in the Globe about picking up furniture that people left on the sidewalk that mentioned it in a cautionary way. Since even back when I was a poor student, I only took my secondhand cast-off furniture from people I knew, and I am even less likely to be trawling Brighton Ave for other people's sofas today, this was a matter of idle interest only. But, according to yesterday's article, I should be AFRAID! VERY AFRAID! Bedbugs are everywhere, including, I guess, reputable hotel chains. The writer suggested keeping one's luggage on the metal luggage rack only and--get this--bringing a flashlight to inspect behind and under the hotel mattress before you sleep in it.

I'm sorry. If the day comes that I really feel I need to travel with a flashlight and flip over the boxspring before unpacking, I will just fucking stay home, preferably in a hermetically sealed plastic bubble. Do you remember the big expose on 20-20(or one of those shows) a few years ago about hotel bedspreads which are changed, like, never, and which your handy-dandy black light tests show to be full, just chock full, of other people's old bodily fluids? Well, lemme say this. Both before and after this helpful information from ABC News, I have sat my nekkid butt on many, many Hampton Inn and Marriott bedspreads and lived to tell about it. In fact, it probably helped contribute to my Superior Immune System. For all you know. You are not going to catch anything from a hotel bedspread, even if a lonely CPA from Cincinnati despoiled it while watching cable porn three weeks ago. It's just gross, not dangerous. So don't think about it, and you'll be fine. I promise.

And that was actually one of the points of the bedbug article, after they finished whipping up the hysteria. Bedbugs don't carry any diseases. They're a nuisance, not a health hazard. But since we're living in a first world country and no longer used to dealing with even the most benign of vermin, the idea of bedbugs is enough to send people on their vacations with flashlights and a thin edge of hysteria.

In another example of this, in the book Home Comforts, the author, who is certifiably a complete germophobe whacko, imparts with a palpable shudder the information that dust mites are arachnoids. The idea that there are microscopic *spiders* living in your sheets is supposed to make you swear that, yes, yes, you will wash your bedding in hot water 4x a week and vacuum every single fucking day. In fact, dust mites are not a problem unless you or a family member have dust allergies or asthma, and the fact that they are microscopic spiders doesn't change that. If you find the idea that they're arachnoids gross, don't think about it. It seriously will be a lot easier than treating your bedroom like it's an operating theater requiring sterile conditions.

And, finally, I find the bedbug article to be yet another example of how the single most important mission of the American media--it's mission statement, you might say--is to instill paranoia. If Muslim terrorists or global warming don't get you, then it's going to be the meteor that's passing too close in 20-whatever or the e.coli in your hamburger or something toxic imported from China or maybe the fact that you're too obese or not obese enough. Meanwhile, mind the bedbugs and the dust mites and the hotel bedspreads, and don't think too hard about the fact that we all die of something sometime.

xoxo