mmm, toxicity.

my super showed up at 8am, as scheduled. i scrambled to get the last of my garbage bags of clothes out of the bedroom as he laid newspaper on the floor and placed a canister on it.

"we need to flip up the mattress," he said. as i dragged the bags down the hall, he hoisted the mattress up and leaned it against the wall.

"this doesn't look bad," he said. he pointed to the top of the mattress. "but there's one right there...crawling."

"BASTARD!" i hissed through closed teeth. "i bet that's the one that's been biting me."

with that, the super said he had to switch off all the circuit breakers as a precaution. he hadn't warned me of that, so i was relieved that i'd spent all my money on plastic bags and laundry detergent and had none left to fill my fridge with food.

he snapped the fuse switches off one by one as i put on my jacket and grabbed my bags.

"you ready?" he asked.

"you bet."

he flipped the cap and started the fogger - TAT it said on the can - and we bolted out the door.

i had every intention of coming home from work around 1:00 or 2:00, getting the fridge back on, doing laundry, cleaning up and putting my life back together -- but it didn't happen. i didn't get out the door until after 4:00. i also planned on hitting futon furniture city on my way home, since they sell the allerzip products there. quick in-and-out, i figured. ha.

i had called FFC yesterday - less than 24 hours ago - to verify they had what i needed. somehow, snce then, they'd sold out of half the package: boxspring covers. i paid $98 + tax for the mattress cover and decided to try my boxspring luck at the nearby bed bath & beyond and was shocked to see the ENORMOUS selection of mattress covers they had in the bedding department. they had nothing boxspring-specific, and i was not in the mood to drop another $90-$100 for a mattress cover to use as a boxspring cover. (i don't know what the distinction is in my head, except that the boxspring doesn't get as much direct contact and use, so its cover need not be as comfortable or fancy.)

the woman at BBB was super nice and, curiously enough, super inquisitive. she examined my allerzip cover, and then was asking me a ton of questions. do you have bedbugs? have you seen them? have you been bit? what do the bites look like? has your home been treated? what was it treated with? did it work? she was very sweet, and i believe her curiosity was actually to help her do her job better, in assisting customers who purchase her products. she said many people speak with a hushed whisper, afraid to admit in public they have such a problem. i laughed and said "not me. whatever. i can admit when i need help. besides, it's not my fault i got them. it's not like i'm a dirty person."

anyhow, i left BBB empty-handed, as every reasonably-priced full-sized mattress cover was out of stock, just like at FSC. i decided to hit target again, since i was there yesterday and they had an aller-something cover for abotu $25. but, lo and behold, they were sold out too, in the last 24 hours. everyone at all these stores told me the same thing: they sell out of their bedbug products at a ridiculous pace, because the problem has become so widespread in the city. ridiculous. so i headed home around 7:00 to my dark, toxic apartment.

in the elevator, i bumped into my next-door neighbor. i decided to come clean (ha). i warned him of my saga, the potential threat to his apartment and his little bulldog, and we sat in the hall and talked for a few minutes. he was very understanding, and grateful for the heads up. he too asked a lot of questions, eventually requesting to peek his head into my apartment to see how bad the fogger smelled. i obliged, despite being totally embarrassed by the state of things inside. "if it's really bad, i'll catch you if you faint," he offered.

i unlocked the door and to our surprise, the fogger left no smell. i flipped all my circuit breakers back on and shrugged at the relative normalcy. time will tell, i guess. i bid my neighbor goodnight, and closed the door.