At first I thought it was prickly heat, the series of red bumps on
my upper arm and near my stomach. On the next night I saw a gnat flying through
my room and decided that was the culprit until I realized it probably couldn't
bite through my clothes. But my cold was absorbing most of my attention and
it's impossible for me to concentrate on more than one misery at a time. I
blamed that, combined with jet lag, for my sudden awakenings in the middle of
the night, when I was jolted into complete consciousness.
On the fourth night I sat on my bed in a paroxym of itching. I
always check the mattress in any room I happen to be in and this one was clean,
but when I climbed up for a view of the top bunk bed, it was covered with dirt.
I went to find the newly-anointed managers of Ascension House and they
discovered ants. I was given a new room that was much larger and apparently
clean.
When I began to move my clothes, I saw a multitude of very small
black beetles in the wardrobe of the room I was vacating so I left the garments
where they were and put them all in the dryer the next morning. There seemed to
be none in my new room and I slept sounder that night than I had in a week.
The managers found a nest of red ants in the room next to my old
one, and quite a few in the room I'd formerly used. Spraying them with BioKill,
they watched them die and we all felt happier. But I have to be grateful to the
little devils--they gave me a bigger room, with much more light and a desk with
a view. And their bites are beginning to fade away, so I think I'll stay at
Ascension House.
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