About a week later I caught myself scratching some terribly itchy little red bumps around my ankles. I didn't think much of it at the time. I was quite accustomed to mosquito bites and didn't stop to think it might be too chilly for mosquitoes.
The bumps didn't go away - they multiplied! An occasional one was appearing elsewhere on my body. To my horror I suddenly realized what the problem was. Bedbugs! In my opinion they are even worse than cockroaches because they are lurk around nearby and crawl on you while you sleep! Cockroaches at least have the decency to stay hidden.
It didn't take long for me to figure out they must have arrived as free boarders on the free boards! I had a whopping big bonfire that night and fiendishly hoped many of them sizzled. I knew they had probably spread elsewhere in the apartment so the next day I called my landlord and tried to sound indignant when I told him the apartment had bedbugs.
"Bedbugs? I think you mean cockroaches. We sometimes have problems with cockroaches."
"I'm pretty sure they're bedbugs."
I held my breath expecting him to ask where they came from, knowing I would have to tell him, but he didn't. The idea that there might be bedbugs in his converted Victorian house was just too foreign to him. In a couple of days a fumigator arrived and solved the bedbug and non-existent cockroach problem.
Several years later bedbugs again became a problem. Gray, Julie and I were airstrip hopping around Baja California in a plane that belonged to her flying club. This was before the highway extended all the way south on the peninsula. Julie had a very detailed pilot's guidebook to Baja ("... thirty feet down the airstrip is a prairie dog hole on the left side ..."). The book informed us that if we buzzed the little village of Bahia Tortuga the local taxi would come out to the airstrip. We tried it and it worked! We had camped on the beaches in many places but there was no beach for miles around this village. We asked the taxi driver to take us to the town's only motel.
"Sorry," he informed us. "Is full with soccer team."
A team from Mexico proper had come over to play the local team, taking all the available rooms in the motel. It was too late to fly on to someplace else since none of the airstrips were paved or had lights and night was fast approaching. We, or rather Gray (the only Spanish I knew was "Buenos dias!"; Julie knew a little more as a New Mexican doctor and could ask "Tiene doloro aqui?" ("Does it hurt here?"), but neither of us spoke as much as Gray) asked the driver if there were any other accommodations in town.
"Si!" he readily answered. "A lady in town takes in visitors."
We bumped over the road that was more potholes than cobbles. We were met at the house by a tiny little dumpling of a woman with fiery orange hair and no teeth. Gray in halting Spanish explained our situation to her.
"Si, si I have room" she said loudly in Spanish thinking perhaps that if she spoke loudly enough maybe even Julie and I would understand her.
Her house consisted of five small cinder block buildings around three sides of a dusty courtyard. She directed us to one of the middle buildings when we asked her where we would stay. If it was too terrible we figured we could camp out next to the plane and leave at dawn. The room turned out to be a drab tin-roofed structure with one window, one naked light bulb hanging down, and quite a number of beds. The floor looked like it was probably dirt. She assured us that the sheets would be fresh so we agreed upon a price after a bit of haggling.
Still smiling broadly the woman summoned her granddaughter, a cute, plump little girl of about ten. She was instructed to take us to one of the town's two cafes for supper while the room was prepared. We didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. The restaurant was owned by the grandmother's sister.
After a tasty meal of locally-caught fish we wandered back. The little girl met us on the road. She had changed her clothes in honor of the occasion and was now wearing a fresh, brightly-colored dress. Smiling and chattering in Spanish too fast for Gray to follow she took us to our room. To our surprise the floor was not dirt but concrete! We noticed a pitcher of water and basin on the dresser but saw no sign of sanitary facilities. Using his best textbook Spanish Gray inquired about them. His question was met with a puzzled stare. The little girl fetched her grandmother and Gray repeated the question. It was met with a broad, uncomprehending smile. Finally Gray tried some of the childish slang he had picked up on the coast of Spain: "Where's the potty?"
The little girl cast her eyes down and giggled behind her quickly-raised hand. Granny guffawed outright. At least they understood! The little girl gathered up a broom and rooted around in one of the buildings. She returned triumphantly with a new roll of toilet paper and beckoned us to follow.
We were led down a rocky little path past the church to a spot overlooking the sea. There perched on top of a 15-foot bank stood an outhouse. She held up her hand for us to stop about ten feet away and went in to the tiny structure. Newspapers, pages from magazines and the inevitable dirt came flying out. She handed Gray the toilet paper and proudly held the door open for us to see. At least there were enough cracks in the walls to keep a brisk sea breeze blowing through but the place was aromatic to say the least. We graciously (I hope) but hurriedly thanked her and she made sure we understood we had to bring the precious roll of toilet paper back with us. After she left we one by one made use of the facilities. There weren't going to be any midnight visits if we could help it!
Our room looked very clean and the sheets on our beds were brand new but we were afraid the conditions were ideal for bedbugs. During my ordeal with bedbugs in Berkeley I had read extensively about the little beasts. One article had suggested that they wouldn't come out in the daylight so we decided to leave the lone light on all night just in case. We slept a bit fitfully until about
11 pm when the room plunged into darkness! We waited a bit to see if it was a mistake. It wasn't. We later found out the town's generators were always shut off at 11 pm. We uneasily went back to sleep.
We had learned when travelling to keep a flashlight handy so when Julie yelled "I've got one! I've got one!" several hours later Gray and I fumbled for our flashlights. She held up her tightly-clenched fingers for inspection but all that was there was a little piece of lint. We returned to our uneasy sleep.
The next morning we checked our ankles. Nothing! I had found out some of the bites didn't become itchy until they were scratched so I rubbed my arms and legs. Still nothing! We headed off to the cafe for breakfast, bleary-eyed but jubilant.
I had hoped that would be my last experience with bedbugs but alas it hasn't been. But I did have a 15-year break.
After my first quarter at Berkeley I was faced with several major decisions. Did I want to aim for a Ph.D. in neurophysiology at Berkeley and end up working in a lab or should I follow my heart back to Colorado and wildlife biology. Neurophysiology certainly seemed more prestigious. But there was one additional bonus for my heart in Colorado: Gray. He was studying engineering there and had asked me to marry him. Wildlife and wedding bells won out so at the end of three quarters I packed my belongings and Harley and I headed back.
After arranging to be admitted into graduate school as an unfunded wildlife student in the fall Harley and I drove down to Albuquerque where Julie lived and was completing her internship in medicine. Dependable Julie again agreed to cat-sit for me while I flew back to Illinois where my 96-year-old grandmother lived with my aunt and uncle. She was not able to travel but was a very important part of my life so we had decided to take the wedding to her. There were lots of wedding plans to be made.
Julie agreed to keep Harley for the month before the wedding then planned to bring her to Colorado in a private plane, leave her with friends, pick up our father and stepmother and fly them to the wedding in Illinois. Carrying cages were not as ubiquitous as they are now so I constructed my own for Harley using cardboard and screening. It looked quite substantial with two layers of cardboard and the screen between them with a few cut-out holes.
Julie reported to me the rest of the story. Harley rode in the carrier quite calmly to the airport but her serenity evaporated when they entered the busy flight service office. In a minute flat she was out of the box and ricocheting around the room. It was a bit like trying to grab a porcupine but Julie managed to catch her and put the harness on. Then she walked over to the air freight shipping lines and bought a real carrying cage that was guaranteed to withstand the escape attempts of cats like Harley. Once in the air Harley became accustomed to the noise and seemed to settle down. She satisfied herself with stretching her paw through the bars every once in a while to give Julie a tap on the shoulder, reminding her of her presence. As if Julie could forget! For a long time after Julie was known at the flight service center as the woman with the cat.
Without much further ado Harley landed in Colorado a second time. None of us suspected that in a few short years she would become a cat with cougar experience!
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