POINT: Sleep Tight, Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite!
Sleep Therapist
Within a week of moving into my new home, it was evident to me that I had been saddled with a bed bug infestation. The horror! The indecency! I simply could not bear the grief of staggering to the bathroom mirror for 8 a.m. therapy sessions, only to be greeted by dime-sized rashes littering the lengths of all my limbs! Blood streaked my cream leaf-pattern sheets. Sleep was no longer a moment of rest wherein I could be cradled in the serene arms of Mother Night, but a nefarious test of will. My life blood was being drained by creatures no larger than grains of rice. The Sisyphean effort to quell the itchiness only resulted in more bitter tears with the burning of Tiger Balm on my flesh. The indignity that I — a sleep therapist! — and millions of others suffer at their barbed, blood-sucking mouths!
But don’t worry. Don’t panic. All is well. The road ahead is long, but the end is in sight. There are tried and tested methods of bed bug removal, and I urge you who suffer as I have to call an exterminator for guidance. Remember: the earlier the better. As soon as you suspect something amiss, don’t delay, for their demonic mating practices increase their numbers tenfold. Fumigate them out of existence. Blast your clothing on high heat. It’s worth it.
Sleep is a sacred universal right that must be protected. Bed bugs may not be a common experience, but it is a painful one, and I urge everyone to be on their guard. For those who are struggling as I have: imagine yourself having a full nine hours of blessed sleep, and hold it in your mind’s eye. It’s there for you to take. You need only abolish these pests from the sanctuary of your bedsheets.
COUNTERPOINT: All Families Deserve to Be Fed
Mother of 437
I find myself in the throes of fiery indignance, enshrined in the golden crown of motherhood, both nurturer and warrior protectoress. I simply must protest this campaign for the violent defenestration of my family, and billions of other families, via the chemically toxic steam that you so advocate.
Woman, what is with you? Have you no shame, no shred of decency? Where is your dignity! Your rationality! I see your profession is dedicated to helping the troubled. Should this not include us, the poor grain-sized insects with naught a penny to our name? For shame, that you should target our children, and our only means of living! We take mere thimblefuls of blood, and you proclaim us unworthy of access to the free soup kitchens that are your veins. This is simply not to be borne.
I hope that the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future visit and impress upon you the error of your ways, for you are worse than Scrooge, who was merely stingy and did not come close to suggesting bed bug exclusion from charitable food security, much less genocide. You, however, would have us starve and shrivel in the bleakest of winter nights, or expire in the torturous high-heat setting of a dryer. I, a mother of hundreds, will not be dismissed in such a manner. As you bewail your piddly skincare routine and sensible rash treatment (you poor fool, Tiger Balm is not a sacred elixir for all ailments, knowledge that you would possess had you not the sense of a cantaloupe), I am busy building a legacy you will never understand.
Extermination, chemical treatment, hmph! Christmas spirit indeed!
