At the end of March, Conor and I checked into a seemingly sparkling Airbnb in Portland, Maine for two reasons:
1) To complete a self-quarantine after traveling through many airports on our way back from Colombia
2) His Dad, Mom, and sister all had COVID-19, and we thought we should be close by
On the first morning of our stay, I awoke to three very large and swollen bites on my collar bone. As I passed my finger over the welts, they burned to the touch. Looking in the mirror, I knew it had to be one of two things- spider bites or bed bugs.
"Con" I called out, "I think these are bed bug bites!"
He entered the bedroom, his eyes weary.
"No," he said, "they aren't."
LOL.
This response from my usually empathetic husband was more of a plea to the universe than a direct command to me. I chuckled. Simply put, we could not hangle bedbugs at this moment- logistically or emotionally. There was already too much going on.
"Okay," I said, as I silently prayed he was right. YIKES.
Fast forward two nights. It's late and Conor gets a text from his sister. His mom can't make it up the stairs due to intense trouble breathing. They want to call an ambulance. After frantic debates and internet searches of "When to send someone with COVID to the hospital?" they decide to hold off and call her primary care doctor in the morning.
A few hours later I discover a few more bites on my hands and neck. Small potatoes compared to everything else. Should I say something? No. Maybe I'm allergic to the linens? Please GOD let me be allergic to these linens!
Thankfully over the next 48 hours, with the help of a nebulizer and some steroids, Con's mom turned a corner (she never went to the ER; her primary care doctor said not to go unless her lips turned blue...double YIKES).
Once we knew she was okay, to celebrate, Con and I decided to take an afternoon hike through a local park. However, as I changed into my athletic clothes, the writing was on the wall...or rather all over my skin. My hands, arms, neck, collar bone, and back were dotted in over 50 swollen welts, all in groups of three.
"Con," I called, my voice echoing down the hall, "can you look at these?"
"Oh god," he said, "I think you have bedbugs!" ....readers, you might be shocked to hear this, but I did not say I told you so. #wifeoftheyear?
After a few moments of "I can't believe this", we finally snapped into action and searched the bedroom for evidence of bed bugs. Almost instantly we found several dead ones on the floor under the bed, and a living, crawling one on the nearby curtain. YUCK YUCK YUCK. As you can imagine, we were totally disgusted. I quickly informed our Airbnb host, and she profusely apologized, blaming it all on the previous guest. She offered us the option to leave for a refund, or to stay at a different property she owned in the same building for the remaining rental time.
We left, right?
Wellllllllll you have to remember something- we were in a very delicate situation. We had literally nowhere else to go- my parents offered, but we didn't want to stay with them until the 2-week self-quarantine period ended, and we definitely couldn't stay with Conor's family because of #COVID. Also, we had SO, SO much stuff with us from Colombia, we hated the idea of moving it all, and most nearby hotels were closed anyway.
Ultimately, we ended up accepting the host's offer to stay in the other property she owned, while bargaining for 50%. At the time, this seemed like a good plan.
Later, when I was literally bawling my eyes out in the car while all of our stuff circled the industrial washer dryers at the local laundromat I wasn't so sure. See below for photo evidence from this very low moment. Note the many welts on my face and neck.
Later, later when we had to evacuate the building while it was fumigated for 4 hours and had nowhere to go because all the local coffee shops, libraries, and restaurants, were closed due to COVID, I realized we should have asked for more like 60% off. In case anyone is wondering, we sought shelter in Conor's parents' detached garage for 3 hours as it poured rain...there was no heat.
Later, later, later, when the bites on my arm had swollen so intensely that it looked like I had broken bones and I went into a self-induced Benedryl coma, I was positive we should have bargained for more like 80% off.
During this time, in one of my rare waking moments between doses of Benedryl, I read this article which kindly informed me most people won't remember the details of COVID/quarantine due to the collective trauma. New York Times, I assure you, despite the trauma, I will never forget the self-quarantine/Airbnb bed bug incident of 2020.
All joking aside, I have basically recovered and we are now living bed bug-free at my parent's house in Connecticut. You might be thinking to yourself, wait, Taylor, what about Conor, and his 50-bed bug bites, and all his scars? Had he recovered too? Readers, I regret to inform you that Conor is in fact not allergic to beg bugs, and has survived this experience completely unscathed. Yes, that's right between 30-60% of people bitten by bed bugs have no reaction at all whatsoever. Don't worry this inequality in skin sensitivity has not affected our marriage in the slightest...
Aside from almost being eaten alive, I kept busy in April by doing almost every possible COVID-19 trend, all while making the best of this very strange quarantine reality.
April Favorites:
-cooking plenty of delicious dinners with the fam, straight from my Grammy's self-authored cookbook (there's an entire section dedicated to cake, can you say 1950's America?)
-knitting a blanket for Lulu and Gavin's newest addition, baby Felix!
-biking, walking, running, and more walking..my happiness has never been more attached to the weather forecast
-walking Scout by the Farmington River with my dad...shoot, did I already mention walking?
-video calls with college friends, many of whom are also back in their childhood homes
-trying, and failing to make my own sourdough yeast
-creating a video tour of my childhood bedroom for my students
-playing a lot of Monopoly Deal and Scrabble...Con always wins Scrabble
-successfully making Dalogna coffee! #trendy
-getting handy around my parent's house with Con- garage organizing, yard cleaning, toilet installation, flower planting, just call us Chip and Jo
-setting up a fake Mexican restaurant for Cinco de Mayo
-converting my parent's dining room and formal living room into our gym/ office space
-distributing chalk to all the neighborhood mailboxes (we wore gloves!) so neighbors can leave each other messages on the sidewalks
-teaching 10th and 11th grade English virtually to all our lovely Colombian students...Google classroom, we adore you!
-becoming besties with my dog, Scout...we now spend so much time together our souls have basically meshed
I hope everyone out there is staying safe and sane. Some days I feel like this quarantine reality is normal, and I almost forget what my world and the larger world was like before. Other days, however, I ache with longing for my school, my routine, and most of all, the friendly faces of my students and colleagues. I hope this post brought a smile to your face or even better, made you laugh. Truth be told, the bedbug story is even funnier in person, but reading it will have to suffice for now. As I say at the end of my virtual classses, "Clean hands, open heart!" :)