Don't let the bed bugs bite

 

Our first night at Matedeiro, we killed the first of four Brazilian wandering spiders that we saw in that house. At the time we didn't know about the Guinness world record for most dangerous spider, or that the genus literally translates to "murderess" or that the venom causes hours-long erections. We didn't know any of the fun facts, we just knew that the spider on the bathroom wall was six inches in diameter and very creepy. Although neither of us like killing, we eventually called an exterminator. Then we got to the the lovely Açores. Our perfect beach house was crawling with cockroaches, an insect for which Carol has a particularly low tolerance. We washed dishes after every meal, including the dog bowl, wiped up spills immediately, and became obsessive about sweeping the floors and taking out the trash, all to no avail. We became killing machines and were considering our options when winter came and they just kind of went away. Our new house seemed free of creeping things at first. Then Carol got what we thought was a spider-bite on her wrist.  A couple of days latter, she had half a dozen bites including one perfect little stigmata in the center of her palm. I thought maybe she had stuck her hands into something noxious, she wondered about spiders, we joked about her piety.  Soon she had 21 of the bites, on her wrists, up her arm and on her neck. We consulted the internet and learned that we have bed bugs. An exterminator is coming.