Cooties

I woke up this morning and watched a few minutes of a New York newscast. One of the broadcast's feature stories was a segment on the City's bedbug epidemic. Apparently, the most recent cootie episode took place at a movie theatre. It sounded quite unpleasant, especially as the creatures like to hitch hike on human skin, hair, and clothing.

I admit I'm intimidated by the notion of going to public venues in the City during the epidemic. I don't want bedbugs in my west-of-the-Hudson home. As a result, the idea of doing pleasurable things in New York, such going to the movies, almost seems out of the question.

This situation reminds me of Jeannie Chang. I made her acquaintance when I lived in Astoria during the Reagan Era. She had a couple of cautious habits which I still remember. One was to walk as far away as possible from construction sites. She believed objects would fall from the structures. I didn't quite buy into the strong version of her theory, until someone died from a falling object just a couple of blocks from where I was working at the time.

Jeannie also would not sit down on a subway train. In those days, homeless people, drug addicts, and others would use subway seats as their futons. Jeannie sized up the situation, and concluded the seats were cootie incubators. She preferred to stand.

I wonder how she would manage in today's bedbug ridden New York.