say it ain't so

While I’m away Alexander calls one night. “Mom, I have really really bad news.  I was in your room and I saw a tiny bug crawling on the top of your sheet.  I think it’s a bedbug.”  It’s a bug and it’s in my bed, so Alexander adds the two together and concludes it’s a bedbug.

I am petrified of bedbugs. Who isn't?   I tell Alexander to put the bug in a bag and bring it to camp.  Maybe the guy who is head of Nature can identify the bug species.  The next night Alexander calls with an update.  “The nature guy doesn’t think it is, but he can’t be sure.”

I come home and Alexander has put the bug into a freezer baggie, then another one and another one on top of that.  He is taking no chances.

I bring in the bagged bug to the local florist.  He is of no help.

I show the bug to my super.  First, he says it's not a bug at all.  Then, after I convince him it is, he tells me it isn't a bed bug.  "Bedbugs are smaller, but ask the exterminator to be sure; he'll be in next week."

 I go online and find two images of a bedbug.

 I then take my own picture of the bug in the bag. 

I don’t think mine is a bedbug.  The markings on the bedbug look banded like an armadillo, while “my bug” looks more like some kind of beetle or even a ladybug.  Bedbugs have six legs, my bug appears to have none.  I'm pretty certain it's not, but I'd hate to be wrong.