Today we decided to see the new George Clooney movie, "The American." $13 a ticket in my neck of the woods. (The movies were a nickel when I was a kid.)
We were planning to go to a 7:15 show but dropped by the box office at 10:30 to get tickets. Didn't feel like paying a Fandango "convenience" charge. Of course, at 10:30 the box office wasn't open, even though there was an 11 o'clock show scheduled. So we went home empty handed.
Later we had brunch with friends. Told them we were intending on going to the movies. They promptly warned us off going because so many theaters are infested with bedbugs. They were probably alarmist, these friends. But even so, what if they weren't? And when was the last time you went to a movie theater that looked like it was cleaned any time in the last 27 years.
The New York Times reports that the bedbug infestation comes mostly from Europe. And that even re-introducing DDT--which had kept bedbugs in check for so many years but killed the California condor, wouldn't help. The little buggers have grown up resistant to the chemical.
Somehow the re-emergence of bedbugs seems symbolic to me. A return to the filth of the middle ages. A symbol of the rot of our civilization. Bugs in our infrastructure, eating away at our fabric from the inside out.
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