Have y’all entered MY GIVEAWAY yet?! If not, you probably should. I guarantee this story will make you want to take a very cleansing bath.
Tonight, while catching the Top Chef finale at Sister’s to root on my imaginary boyfriend, Kevin (so cute!), Sister and I became aware of an uninvited guest in her kitchen. I was headed in to grab some water when a huge mouse scampered across the floor. And let me say, though I’ve always mocked the cartoonish stereotype that any woman in the presence of a mouse immediately shrills “EEEEK!” while jumping on the nearest ottoman — dude. Totally came to pass. The wonderful experience also reminded me of the time earlier this year when my house in California hosted its own plague.
For much of last March, I woke up every morning from dreams that minnows and crawdads and other hideous beasts were swimming underneath my skin. I’d jerk myself to consciousness in the wee hours, scratching bloody rivulets through my thighs and lower stomach. But since this was a pleasant change of pace from my usual nightmares (killing former flames in car crashes is often thematized), I bandaged myself up and thought surprisingly little of it. As the days passed, I started scratching a lot, but none of the four guys I lived — not even The Ex — had any bites or complaints, so I chalked it up to an overactive imagination.
Then, on April Fool’s Day (of course!), I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, and saw a little speck scuttle across my thigh. Holy friggin’ shit. I scoured my skin and saw two of the little dudes — translucent beasts, the size of a pencil point, looking in every respect like miniature crabs. Wait, did I say translucent? Right before my eyes, one of them turned a glowing crimson. The little dude was recharging his hit points by DRAWING IN MY BLOOD.
After some discretionary shrieking, stared down the bathroom and everything looked normal except — jesus, the whole wall by the toilet was moving. It was covered with the bugs so thick that the drywall looked like it was shimmering. But translucent, right?, so you could only see them if you were looking for them. Judicious application of my google fu revealed that not only did we have tropical rat mites, but, inevitably, somewhere, rats lurked.
Frantic calls to all the big extermination companies could only get us an appointment for a screening a week later, with treatment beginning after two weeks. TWO WHOLE WEEKS. During which time, The Ex and I had no choice but to launder our sheets every night and sleep while under siege.
Except for some freaky reason (I blame menstrual pheromones?), rat mites are more attracted to women and children than men. So despite the fact that The Ex was sleeping next to me, he woke up with his skin whole and smooth as a fresh-baked dinner roll, while my stomach and thighs were bitten into a purple, craggy mess. In fact, I’m not prepared to swear my skin wasn’t oozing at some point. (Forgive me. I do so relish the grotesque.)
All that said, the grossest part of the story? I called in the biggest-name extermination company in the area to take a look at the problem, and ended up taking a day off work to show the guy around. What’s the problem?, he asked; tropical rate mites, I told him with authority. He didn’t even ask where they were — just flipped over the mattress, said he didn’t see anything and couldn’t diagnose the problem without a live sample, then got ready to leave. But wait!, I said, and showed him the squirming wall of arachnid delight. Without a living sample, I can’t diagnose the problem, he said, bolting for the front door.
Um, dude, what about all those live mites I just showed you? I asked, then forced him to come upstairs and look yet again. Again, he shook his head and charged toward the door.
I don’t understand why you won’t take a sample, I told him.
There aren’t any mites in your house. It’s all in your head. Are there any men who live in the house? Maybe I could talk to one of them, he conceded to calm down the poor little lady.
It can’t be in my head! I may or may not have shrieked. Look at me, I’m a fucking leper. I showed him my upper arms, purple and bloody with little raised bumps the exact size of tropical rat mites.
Whether he used precisely the phrase “menstrual hysteria” is for historians to debate, but he finally agreed to take a sample of the mites from upstairs, incorrectly (it transpires) identified them as avian mites, then told me to have my boyfriend call him.
I didn’t, of course. I called another extermination company, who managed to eradicate the vermin in less than a week and not even reify the patriarchy while doing so. Still, I ended up feeling shitty and mistreated for weeks after the encounter, but never got up the balls to do anything about it — not even write a pissed-off Yelp review.
Just one of those stories that reminds me of the kind of girl I was, and the kind of girl I’d really like to never be again. Now, of course, it would seem like child’s play to call a manager and complain my way up the corporate ladder until I was sure the incompetent jerk would feel some repercussions. It’s nice to look back on what I’ve done for these past few months and think that I totally wouldn’t take shit from this guy again; I wouldn’t take it from anyone. Except vermin, I guess, ’cause you kind of have no choice about that.
[Edit: My mega apologies! The Ex wants the world to know that he was bitten as well! I just didn't remember, because apparently he suffered in silence and anyway I was too busy fending off rogue vampires and leper colony recruiters! So spare a little sympathy for him, if you'd like.]
—
These lovely descriptions of my feasted-upon flesh provided under the auspices of TMI Thursday, hosted by LiLu. Be sure to check out her Post Secret TMI Thursday today, where I promise I am not scarring your eyes with any more of my grostesque secrets.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
A+ for refusing to reify the patriarchy, even in the face of flesh-eating monsters
Yuck yuck yuck!!! I feel a bit vomity now. This would have freaked me out bigtime too!
Wow. That is SOOO nasty. The worst I ever had was fleas in my house. Even that was awful. Just knowing they were there, jumping around the carpet…ew.
Oh, wait…no, the house I rented in Mexico was worse. Much much worse. Termites, mice, cockroaches, ants AND scorpions. Dude. Ever have to check your shoes for scorpions?
But somehow rats seem worse to me. UUUGH
I think you should still complain to the exterminator company. That shit should never go un-complained-about.
That was nasty, and I agree totally with Chiefy about still raising a complaint about that first company. I presume “The Ex” would happily be in it in the circumstances?
Oh and incidentally women have a different skin pH (acidity level) to men, so there’s the factoid behind why you were bitten and he wasn’t.
Interesting about skin pH — that explains the gender different.
I don’t understand what you mean by “‘The Ex’ would happily be in it in the circumstances.” Pronouns, dude. They require antecedents.
I understood the post to refer to a time when you were living with the man known, and who posts, here as “The Ex”, quotation marks and title case denoting the use of a proper name (well as proper as internet aliases get anyway ;) ), and meant that I thought you still had the sort of relationship where he’d support you as far as possible in verifying the facts of the complaint.
Ah. I think “in it,” the way you’ve used it, is some sort of across-the-pond slang that I just didn’t catch.
Across the pond we would still say “in on it” like normal people, hence the confusion.
“In on it”? Muscles, have you been letting Justice teach you American idioms again?! Clearly the only universally recognized phrase here is: “get yo’ back.”
That would account for it; I’ve only heard “in it” in this sort of context, but if it’s Anglo-Australian venacular and the US would say “in on it” as a synonym here…
Ew! And I thought dealing with one cockroach was bad. Or one gecko.
That exterminator man sounds totally obnoxious. I’d have expected TKOG to totally kick his ass. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen again but if it does, I think someone’ll get eaten alive.
If it happened to me now, I totally, totally would have kicked his ass. See, this is why I need to be TKOG now — to make up for all the times I was totally lame and a doormat back in my old life.
This whole post is making me itch!
Also I love that you use the word “auspices.”
oh you poor crazy women.
Ewww haha I seriously do feel like I need a shower. And unfortunately I know how you feel. I had a scabies incident not too long ago, which ended up not being a scabies incident… but still i was treated twice and I burnt my own skin and dug holes in my body trying to get rid of an invisible, non-existent parasite. Oh and I’ve had rats too…
I think it’s really unfair that the ex didn’t catch a case of your tropical rat mite.
And I don’t think it is too late to call and make a complaint… i would!
Maybe the first exterminator guy was intimidated by your awesomeness and rather than have his head explode from TKOG overload, he thought he could do a better job by talking to one of your roomies who was way less awesome.
Makes sense to me.
dude, weirdly I totally accept this explanation! ;-)
I will forever, ever, EVER be haunted by the phrase “tropical rat mites”.
Thanks.
Dude, you can’t let those mites recover all their life. That’s when they start shooting lasers out of their swords!
Love the Legend of Zelda reference. :-)
But credit has to go TKOG’s original description of a translucent mite filling with blood as “recharging his hit points.” So apt.
Also, so ugh. Those little fuckers.
I was thinking of them regenerating and starting to throw spells like “Demi 2″; does it show that I’m a Final Fantasy fan, and not a Ninty person?
oh my gosh I have never heard of tropical rat mites before but they now scare the shit out of me. I’m glad you didnt include pictures of them! Even though now I kind of want to hit them up on google..
For the last two minutes I’ve thought about what to write here, but the truth is that I have no words. At all.
Just know that I’m sitting here, my mouth gaping.
Job well done.
Holy hell moly…there are RAT MITES?! WTF? And the exterminator was a straight-up dick. I’d have “accidentally” pushed him over into that wall so he could get his “live sample”. I’m sure he’d have been bittten by at least one or two hundred of them. Bastid.