A few months ago, I drug myself into the bathroom to prepare for a morning shower, when I spied a tiny round bug in the bottom of the tub. After further inspection, I reeled back in horror. Is that a bed bug? I’ve seen those nasty blood cows before, at a rather posh hotel in a metropolitan area some years back, but this wasn’t like those. Not from recollection, at least. I attempted to pick it up with a piece of tissue, but it was obliterated on contact. “Hmm,” I thought. Bed bugs don’t squish so easily. In fact, it almost takes an actual razor sharp edge to even break one.
Out of concern for my own sanity, I double checked my bed and all areas around it where those vile creatures would take up residence, and found nothing, not even a hint of a sign. I checked areas on the walls and in the carpet where they could be congregating, and again nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief on this discovery — or lack thereof — one of the side effects of finding those things in our hotel room was having to ditch all clothing and cloth-related items before we came home out of fear of bringing them with us, since we found one in one of our bags that were on the bed we found the bugs in. I lost my three favorite Ralph Lauren polos in that fiasco, and also my favorite Colorado Avalanche jersey.
About a week later, I spied another one of these buggos in my bathtub, and instead of attempting to pick it up, I took a picture. Then I lightly touched it with my finger hoping to at least pick it up, and again, it instantly turned to dust. What are these things?
A cursory Google reverse image search was 100% certain that it was a bed bug, but the bed bugs in the images showed no head parts on their bodies. Being that these tiny transients had articulated heads, I began to calm down a bit, since I ruled out the most important thing: they are not at all bed bugs.
When I typed “bed bug but with a head,” I got the answer I was looking for: that is a bat bug.
A bat bug?? In my bathtub? Is it supposed to be bathbug?
Bat bugs are visually similar to bedbugs, except unlike the bedbugs with their heads built near their undercarriage, they’re more like beetles in that they have an actual head. They are also a lot softer and more easily squished, abhor the presence of humans, and if they find themselves in your house, it’s by pure accident, as apparently our bodies’ natural scent is revolting to them. The way they get into a house is simple: they piggy back on a bat (thus the name) or a bird (like a pigeon), find their way into the crawl space, and fall in through the air conditioner ducts. Since they’re super tiny, they can fit through almost any crack or crevice, no matter how tight or sealed things are.
My solution for this was simple: a swatch of netting (like for screen doors) in between the ceiling air conditioner vent grate and the vent hole itself. I haven’t seen once since.
This led me to realize something that I’d been thinking about for awhile: not everything is as it seems. I reacted to these bat bugs because of what they looked like. They appeared to be bed bugs, when in actuality, it wasn’t even close…only by appearance was it judged with misappropriated disdain and terror.
It’s not that deep, really. But in life, I often find myself reacting exactly like this to things that have nothing to do with something else. Just because it has cream and sugar doesn’t make it coffee. It could be cake or even ice cream (or both – I like both). Just like with trauma recovery, not every situation is bringing the pain just because it has similarities to past events. We as humans react innately to the shape of things because we know that certain shapes are indicative of painful possibilities. Take snakes, for instance: a typical garden snake doesn’t even bite, where a diamond back rattlesnake is extremely venomous, especially the younger ones. Both are often treated with the same panic and violence. Perhaps with this metaphor in mind, I could be more mindful in the future when I want to instant-react based on appearances.