“Some things take hold of you. Invade you. Own you. You want to be free of them, but you never will be.”
– Rich Shapero, Rin, Tongue and Dorner

(I got that quote from goodreads, and I have no idea who Rich Shapero is)

There we were, minding our own business when they decided to take what was not theirs. The bugs smugly walked right through the crack in our screen glass door and declared our room theirs.

Okay, we got bugs in our room.

I’m still not sure what kind. We were listening to an audiobook laying on our bed when I feel a creepy crawler on my leg. I swept the first one off and didn’t think much, but then another one popped up on Kaitlyn’s pillow. So, I got off the bed and looked around for the source of the bugs and found that our floor was moving. A hundred little centimeter-long bugs crawling on our floor and our suitcases. This is where that creeping tingling feeling shoots up the back of your neck and you shiver just a bit. You know that feeling? Yeah, well..

I knew we couldn’t just slap them all with the back of a flip-flop, so I called down to the front desk our “luxury” hotel. I asked for help and they said “What?” So I told them we had bugs and they said “What?” So I got on google translate and looked up the word for cockroach and said “Maleng saab” to them and they said “Sorry no English.” The front desk was no help. “They don’t really care about us” -Michael Jackson

There is an app that they use here in Thailand called Line. It’s a messaging app and we had to download it when we got to the hotel. The government medical staff that monitors the covid testing at our hotel has an account on Line that I was able to message. I messaged them that we had bugs in our room, and they were a little more sympathetic than the front desk staff. It only took them 7 messages and a cool half hour to send 2 dudes up with a can of bug spray.

When they saw the magnitude of the problem the medical staff guys were able to convince the hotel staff that we should move rooms. At first I was sad to move rooms and then I realized I was probably just suffering from a weird sort of Stockholm syndrome and decided that it would be good to have a change of scenery. So, with the help of our friends from the Thai government, we grabbed our suitcases and moved them all the way across the hall. How exciting. We even got a new view!

And a new yellow wall and abstract painting!

It took us a solid hour when we got to the new room to empty all our bags and flush out all the straggling bugs. This is just half of the first bag!

Well, it was a good adventure and some good practice at being flexible. That’s the takeaway. I should work on some politician’s spin team like Tom Haverford in Parks and Rec. I’d be good at it.

-Sam

Hello friends