You read that title and you started to feel a little itchy and gross...

What's that? Did I just feel something crawling on me?!?

I am probably the most paranoid person you will ever meet. Well, maybe not EVER. But probably pretty high up there. I am paranoid about a lot of things:

1. strangers. I am convinced everyone is out to get me.
2. illness or disease. I am always looking up symptoms online and diagnosing myself.
3. choking. I am convinced if I eat a hard candy, I will most likely choke and die.
4. murder. I think someone is going to break into my apartment and kill me. I have already mapped 3 possible escape routes.
5. death. I am always thinking of the most random reasons I will die. Like the ceiling fan will fly off and hit me. Or my computer will short circuit and a fire will break out.
   

I think you get the point.

So this one day, I wake up with bites on my legs and a few on my stomach. Immediately I am convinced: I have bed bugs.

I pull up the internet and research bed bugs. I need to see what they look like, where they live, how to kill them, what the bites look like, etc. I am certain I have seen these babies before...

I am soon crawling around my bed peering into the edges of my sheets and looking for tell-tell signs. I can't see anything. But I KNOW I have them. They must just live on the couch or carpet. Perhaps they hadn't invaded my bed yet.



So I examined the couch. And even the carpet (I am feeling a little embarrassed now).

When I still didn't see any little bugs I started thinking... well... I was outside a few days before. Walking in the woods.

And then I give up and deduce: I am a crazy person.

The bites (chigger bites, most likely) faded. I never had any more (aka: no bed bugs). And I stayed out of the forest. After all, nature loves me a little too much.

After all this, is my lesson learned?

I'm going to say... no. I came home from school with an upset stomach, researched symptoms online, and deduced I must have some kind of gastrointestinal disorder.

You can't win them all.