#trigger warning bugs

Every Afictionados Best Line Award (Robyn)

Riverdale Episode 601: Welcome to Rivervale

I was telling a colleague about the time my sister and I were coming home from overseas and did an overnight layover in Shanghai, and my sister's bed had bedbugs in it. And my colleague (who travels LOADS) told me two main things:

Bedbugs don't live in the mattress or the sheets, they live in the bed frame, in any cracks or hideyholes there are, like in the joins etc.

Bedbugs will only come out in the dark.

So therefore, if ever you find yourself in a place that has bedbugs, you can do two things to prevent being bitten:

Take your sheets and pillows, and sleep on the floor -- preferably on tile, if the room has it, but just get away from the bed.

Sleep with the lights on, and the little fuckers won't come out at all. They hate light, so just leave the lights on and put on an eyemask or wrap a t-shirt around your head or something, and sleep with the lights on. Insta-fix.

She also told me that the couple places she's stayed in with bedbugs, she told the staff the next day about the problem and they then gave her free breakfast and took all her clothes to be laundered free of charge, so make sure you tell the folk if you ever have this problem. Quite aside from informing them of a serious health and sanity problem, they give you free things as an apology.

Growing up in a filthy home installs this fundamental state of depression. There is chronic anxiety of the need to be clean and have your environment clean, what other people will think, and as that state marinates through years of hopelessness, that's when depression roots itself deeply. Over the years, my family has conformed to the filth and found some sense of "liberty" in being lazy and gross. My mother and my brother are dirty and smell foul; they live their lives without giving a fuck about hygeine, and seemingly, it gives them a sense of "freedom." They consider basic hygeine "unecessary", and even "oppressive", when they're confronted about their smell/appearance.

Our house has affected everyone, but after awhile, the rest of my family stopped giving a shit. This alludes to a bigger picture of how they respond to the dysfunction in our family, with conformity. I've responded to the conditions I grew up in with strong aversion, and I've developed severe anxiety about filth. I'm the only person in my family who washes their hands, showers every day, and lives in a clean space. I can't touch doorknobs or any surface with a lot of germs, I wash my hands constantly, I spend a large portion of my time cleaning myself. It can get a bit ridiculous at times, but it's worth it to me. Basic hygeine is essential to feeling good and having self respect, and I'm glad I haven't given in. I've tried to encourage my family to get it together, but it's not that they've gotten too used to living this way - they're opposed to change.

Okay soooo

I uhhh

Uhhhhhhhh

Fuckin palmetto bug

In my room

Got my dad to deal with it

He aint good with bugs

Only got a leg

Bug went INTO THE AIRVENT

Am not

Not gonna deal with that

Im gonna sleep with my cat tonight

She knows how to deal woth bugs