Labor Day Has Me Bitten by the Travel Bug...Not The Bed Bug

I'm not much of a bug person really. I do think about bugs sometimes and the number one bug I love to hate is the cockroach. I have had close, personal contact with three different kinds of cockroaches: the American, the German, and the Oriental. The great majority of my interaction with these hard-shelled, hard-to-kill, speed merchants has that of introduction services. I introduce them to various products made for men by shoe manufacturers around the world. Usually, I am a big fan of American things. I love America-The United States of-, I enjoy the band "America" and of course anything as a American as hotdogs and apple pie. In the case of roaches, I make an exception. I take exception to them being called "American". Cockroaches do,however, have one positive trait in my book: they are always busy. Antennae twitching, searching, adapting, it seems they do a full's days work. They could be considered the "ant's" of the "disgustingly cocky" insect world.

A new bug is moving up quickly on my most important insects to avoid: the bedbug. They are the "grasshoppers" of the "disgustingly cocky" insect world. They may not be the laziest, but they are certainly the laziest getting the most press right now. These bloodsuckers lay around in bed all day. That's a strike against them. If I can't lay around, why then should they? If they would keep their little bed bug butts in mattresses at the dump, I could live with that, but they been found reclining in some the most pretigious hotels in the world. What are they thinking? I'll tell you what they are thinking..."we are only going to live about ten months, forget climbing the social ladder. We bed bugs need a social elevator! That's what I call "living in the fast lane". At ten months, I was trying to get some of a bowl of oatmeal into my mouth with one hand and fending off an approaching napkin with the other. These bugs on the other hand, are stroking their bed bug beards for the last time - some of them living a life I'll never know.

I've been reading Bed Bug Handbookat the Georgia Health Department. Now when the word "bed bug" is brought up, I will immediately and forever connect the words "fecal spots". I don't think I can say those four words together out loud really fast, but I can, with great speed, think about how unenjoyable the memory of my stay at a five star accomdation will be if I find myself bitten by an insect who has prepared a bed of "fecal spots" on which I may lay while he enjoys, and if I may so myself, fine dining.

So as I sit here contemplating travel during the Labor Day holiday, I think how helpful it would be if the city I am going to could let me know if I will be sleeping alone or least with a partner of my choice at the hotel where I will make reservations. Visitors to Greatercolumbusga.com may not know in "real time" what the actual bed bug population is at a given location, but they can know what the city health inspectors think of the cleaniness and cleaning practices of hotels in Columbus Georgia. Quickly and easily current health department inspections are available on the website's Columbus Georgia's hotel listing.

It's no guarantee that you won't be bitten after you get there, but it can help keep you from unknowingly diving onto fecal spots all the while thinking you are "snug as a bug.