Creepy, Crawlies ..

I have always been passionate about helping others, and when I chose the human services field - I knew I would love it. I knew that along with it would come some very stressful situations and some very unpleasant conditions.

Disclaimer: My house is not spotless - far from. We don't vaccuum, dust, and clean the counters every day. We pick up clutter when people come over, and sometimes we do have dirty dishes.

Every week, I enter multiple homes with conditions from spotless (cleaner than my house will EVER be) to not knowing what I'm sitting in. I see cockroaches, lice, and mysterious sticky substances. I am exposed to secondhand smoke, scabies, mold, and every virus/bacteria you could ever search for on WebMD. While I don't overly enjoy all these things, they don't particularly bother me. (Although, the smoke bothers me much more now that I'm pregnant .. I don't even go into relative's homes who smoke since I've found out I'm pregnant, but when it's your job - you have no choice). I just trust that God will protect me (and Poppy) from all these things that go along with helping others. I know I'm making a difference, and to me that's worth all the risks.

Anyway, today I had a situation that truly gave me the creepy, crawlies .. and it will give you them, too, so if you want to sleep without itching tonight - please don't read on. However, I also found a lot of humor in it because that's just what I do and probably the reason I'm able to keep my sanity at my job.

I was on a visit today and halfway through I was informed that the apartment is infested with bed bugs. I am not kidding you - bed bugs are seriously one of my worst fears. I fear hotels for this reason and the thought of them makes me ill. But, being the professional I am, I had to remain completely calm and take it with a grain of salt rather than becoming hysterical and jumping around the room scratching all over in true Grace fashion. I finished the visit, went outside, and that's when panic set in. I had been sitting on a metal folding chair - good. However, my coat had been on the  couch - bad. I got out of view of the apartment and took my coat off (it was not the least bit warm today, either) and opened my trunk. I had a grocery sack in there so I tied it up securely and got into my car. Then I panicked again - my seats are cloth so if there were any on me, they were giong to jump to my seat. Ahh! There was no escape. Anyway, I took a deep breath and drove back to the office where I panicked to one of my co-workers who reassured me that there was little chance I had picked any up but to make sure I dried my clothes when I got home just to be safe. I then spent a good 20 minutes researching bed bugs - never do that - you'll just itch more!

I made it through the work day - scratching like crazy - and pulled in our garage at home. I would guess it's about 30 degrees in our garage. I stripped down naked and set all my clothes on the steps. I am OCD about laundry - seriously - OCD (like reds don't go with pinks) so I left my shoes, pink bra and pink undies on the step and threw the rest of my clothes in the washer. I then ran to the shower and took a forever long shower to try and get all the itchies out of me. (It didn't work).

Let's just say - my husband was a bit puzzled when he pulled in the garage to find my tennis shoes, bra, and undies on the step. ;) I'm currently washing/drying my clothes for a 2nd time .. just to be safe. I wanted to just throw them away, but my husband would have been extremely upset at my irrationality so I stuck with this system instead.

I know you are all probably thinking this was an extreme overreaction and that the likelihood of me bringing them home was small, but you just never know and I tend to err on the side of overreacting. I will most likely start visiting this house once a week and I will just have to get used to it and deal with it because this is the job and field I chose, but I have a feeling there will be a lot of changing in the garage moments after work until I can deal with it.

When I texted my coworker about it, she pointed out that, "What husband doesn't want to come home to a naked wife?" Good point .. Benny might not mind my overreacting after all. ;)