Bedbugs in Brooklyn

 

It's not what you think.

I am cooking the books.

Just in case.

Everyone is freaking out about bedbugs in New York. They have landed. It came to the mainstream consciousness only lately. I remember reading Miss Heather's diatribes about bedbugs years ago.

If only they had listened then. Now there's been a run on sniffer dogs and reports of sniffer dog false positives! And we're crawling with bedbugs!

So, the nice practise of putting books you no longer want on the sidewalks, neatly arranged, for others to adopt, has suddenly become a little problematic, I think. It occurred to me that the critters may hide in the spines? I mean, I would see them, but I'm as itchy as the next person when I think about them, so I elected to bake two recent adoptions. Paul Prudhomme spent a few hours at 200'F to no ill effect, in fact maybe it did him some good. But then he went back to the sidewalk the next day. The food didn't inspire me as much as it made me feel heavy.

And the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. I don't think anyone ever read that book. I might not, either.

And I wonder if anyone baked the books I put out recently? A perfectly new Gary Shteyngarten, and two Andre Brinks. I think I'd read the Brinks twice and that was enough. I know I will never read them again, and to me the only good books are books I read again and again and again. What would I do without books? Go mad, I think.

Perhaps the cat could be trained to be a sniffer cat? He is an excellent smoke alarm.