Survival

Recently, I've taken to defending my home:



And let me say, I don't even wish this on my worst enemy.

They're so bad that I couldn't even finish watching that clip.

All I can tell you is that it's the worst scourge that I've seen.

I've lived in a house with roaches, spiders, and even rats. All which seem to leave me the heck alone when I'm in slumber.

I try to find a silver lining: spiders tend to capture insects like houseflies that bother me even moreso, roaches can basically break down ANYTHING, rats... well, I still don't know.

Bed bugs? Bed bugs are there to... well, according to ancient tradition (maybe), to cure ear infections, snake bites and... hysteria.

Weird. Because bed bugs tend to cause hysteria. Especially in my neighbors.

After combing through dozens of webpages - researching everything from "how they get there" to "how to get rid of them", I found one unanimous cry: They're EVERYWHERE.

"With the advent of international travel, the once defunct bed bugs have valiantly returned... to take over suburbia," explains a fake news story in my head.

I don't know what else to do other than vent about the problem.

One can only try to exterminate them ad infinitum, but then, what would happen to the world if they didn't exist.

We learned with killing wolves.

Sure, they can maim the crap out of folks, but killing them would only make the resident population of deer increase out of control.

What's so bad about a dozen more Bambi's?

Well, the problem gets thicker: Bambi's a vegan, and only eats veggies that are available. Namely, trees.

So, imagine Bambi eating your newly planted sapling. Over... and over... and over again. Multiply that to 1000 Bambi's... 2000... and you'll start to get the picture.

For the life of me, I can't really even tell you what adverse effect that killing a bajillion bed bugs would have, but I'm sure there's some consequence.

Knock off the balance of life, and you'll knock off... well... life.

Look at what happened to the bees (and I'll stop preaching).

Lots of people die from random bee stings.

But, when eradicated, you find out that there's no one left to pollinate those beautiful flowers.

So, guess what. You've got to do it... or humanity dies.

Wow.

I mean, it's just a flying insect, essentially. Yeah, they make great honey which never goes bad and is a great source of sweetening up your tea, but death?!

Again, I'm not sure why these "bed bugs" exist... I don't even know how they survive for - supposedly - up to a YEAR without any food (wish that I could learn that trick).

All I do know is that life depends on a balance.

We all do.