In Which The Most Disgusting Thing EVER Happens in my Flat

Ok, so, two nights ago, Jack and I had a terrible time sleeping.

It was a hot night in our loft apartment, and on top of that, we kept feeling like something was crawling all over us. Be that as it may, you know how it is when you go to bed a bit late, you've got an early morning, and you're feeling a little desperate about going to sleep, right? I thought I was just being hysterical; that I felt that horrible crawly sensation once, and then imagined it over and over again, visualizing horrible little bugs in a self-perpetuating sleep-prevention drama of my own invention because of how the panic was mounting about how soon I had to wake up.

Or, perhaps it was just our minds' inability to actually make the leap to "YES! BUGS!!", because... I mean... RIGHT?! IT CAN'T BE!

Whatever the situation in our addled, sleep-deprived minds, we just spent the night tossing and turning, getting more and more frustrated, and not sleeping. Jack left early to teach a lesson, leaving me with my yoga bandage wrapped around my head to block out the sun, trying desperately to sleep for that hour and a half later that I could stay in bed, until, upon removing my blindfold, I looked down at my pillow to see that in fact, it was COVERED WITH LITTLE HORRIBLE BLACK INSECTS.

At this point, you will excuse me for the CAPS LOCK, but I FREAKED OUT. Not only were bugs crawling all over me and my bed, but they were all over the WALL ABOVE MY BED. It was HORRIBLE. What the hell were they?! Not fleas, because they didn't jump. Not lice, praise Jesus, because they were black and not in my hair. Ticks? They looked like ticks, but no, they weren't stuck to me, or sucking me bone dry en masse. So, WHAT?

It turns out that they were PIGEON MITES that crawled in through one of our bedroom windows that opens onto the building's air shaft. We don't open it because of the disgusting pigeon domain just outside of it, but we do open just the top, just a little, to let in a little air on those hot nights, and all I can say is EEEUUUURRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

Needless to say I washed everything (including, in my frenzy, my mobile phone) in a machine set to STERILZE, showered with manic energy and furious scrubbing, and then called Jack to beg him to please GO HOME AND KILL THEM ALL, which he did, the dear, dear creature.

Since then, however, we've been sleeping on the floor in our living room, and I'm covered with little itchy bumps, which are either bites, in which case, I hope the horrible little beasts haven't given me encephalitis, bird flu, or the freaking BLACK PLAGUE, and that they haven't laid eggs under my skin, or burrowed in there to make me their new host or some shit, but the foregoing list should give you some idea of the subsequent PANIC engendered by this violation of MY GODDAMNED BED, and some sense of the kind of hysteria Jack and has been putting up with with sympathy and understanding in heroic proportions, since the ATTACK.

Those of you who know me well know how I feel about the sanctitiy of my BED, for Chrissakes.

So, yeah. TRAUMA IN PRAGUE. I hope I make it.