My dorm got bed bugs this week.
Before you write me off as the most unhygienic slob ever, I should say that the bed bug incident occurred in a different suite. Nevertheless, my suitemates and I reaped the benefits of everything a bed bug sighting brought with it. This of course means we all received emails from Pepperdine with a subject line reading, “EVACUATE!!!!!”
I was a little taken aback when I pulled that email up; I was in the library looking at an archaic Bible worth more than $150,000 with my classmates when I accidentally blurted out, “Son of a —” at a level higher than intended. As I was escorted off the premises by a DPS officer, I couldn’t help but feel like I was following the email’s order, having not actually read anything other than the title.
When I got back to my dorm, however, I was greeted by a team of men in hazmat suits huddled outside my suite. The palpable feeling of impending doom festered throughout the entire hallway, not unlike a group of soldiers ready to deploy onto the Normandy beaches on D-Day (or whatever Gerard Butler felt at the end of “300”). When they noticed me, one of them yelled, “Get back!” and tackled me to the floor.
“Bed bugs are everywhere!” he yelled as I scrambled for the exit.
At this point I had a remedial understanding of what bed bugs were, but based on the mitigating circumstances, I could only assume they were like those bugs in the “Mummy” movies, capable of crawling inside your body and moving around like it “ain’t nothing” (Snoop Doggy Dog 2001).
Later on, our resident director explained to us that bed bugs were essentially “more annoying” mosquitoes, who procreate incredibly fast through a process called traumatic insemination (which, in and of itself, is one of the scariest terms I’ve ever heard). Because of this, they were forcing us to move out our rooms for a “night at the very longest.” The room erupted in cries of anger and disbelief; after all, we all had just finally settled into our living situations. When order was restored, he assured us that it would all be ok because Pepperdine was giving us $50 gift cards to the Caf. This, of course, brought with it louder cries of anger and disbelief.
The bed bugs were really starting to get under my skin. I don’t have the statistics to substantiate this, but I’m pretty sure $50 can buy you like one and a half sandwiches from La Brea. Either way, I have spent the end of each semester here at Pepperdine frantically trying to get rid of my Caf points, buying packets of Pop-Tarts from Nature’s Edge in hopes of burning them into fossil fuel for my car; and I don’t even drive a hybrid. So basically, as a means of saying they were sorry that a species of microscopic pests were “traumatically inseminating” on our beds while we slept, the school gave us a chore for later on down the road. The idea of thousands of bugs sucking the blood out of my veins as I slept was something I could come to terms with, but the excess Caf points made me break out into a cold sweat.
The clothing situation only exacerbated the problem. Everything we owned had to be washed, so that we could machine wash these vermin into oblivion. Pepperdine hand-picked our outfits for the next few days and threw the rest of our stuff in plastic bags, never to be seen again. And, though I loved having my mother lay out my clothes for elementary (and high) school, I couldn’t help but feel perplexed about the clothes left behind for me. This list is 100 percent real: two cardigan sweaters, one pair of desert boots, orange shorts and one striped polo shirt. At this point, the problem transitioned from a bug infestation to a commentary on human rights and freedom.
As this sentence is being typed, I have yet to see my clothes or sheets. I’ve slept with a pillow and blanket for three days, and may or may not have failed out of Pepperdine. Nevertheless, I’ve been wearing orange shorts and boots with pride, alienating every female on campus in the process. There is a Zen quote that reads, “The obstacle is the path.” I haven’t exactly figured out where this bed bug path leads, but trust me, I’m looking in every nook and cranny for the answer.
