The halls of Congress have been crawling for years with lobbyists and influence peddlers seeking to cash in on government largess. However, one creature proved too much this year in the Senate. The Architect of the Capitol rolled out yellow police tape and sealed off a bathroom in the Dirksen Senate Office Building after a woman was spotted crawling with bed bugs while waiting to attend a Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
According to the article, the woman was a line sitter hired by lobbyists and others to hold a space for a hearing. The female placeholder was spotted by people in line with bed bugs reportedly crawling all over her. They were then also found in the nearby women’s restroom. The restroom was closed off with yellow tape as the Capitol Architect went into full bedbug containment mode.
And I would have thought that there would be some professional courtesy shown to an ancient bloodsucker on Capitol Hill. After all, they have some familiar attributes with other denizens of Capitol Hill moving through the halls from office to office. They “do not fly, but they can move quickly over floors, walls, and ceilings.” Once successful, “After feeding, however, their bodies swell.” They tend to multiply and gradually irritate and even weaken the hosts upon which they are feeding. One leading lobbyist was quoted as saying “My style of lobbying is not to have big formal meetings, but to catch members on the fly as they’re walking between the House and the office buildings.” Sound familiar? Give them an Armani suit and an expense account and one would think that they would fit in quite well.
“I am most particular about my bed; it is the sanctuary of life. We entrust our almost naked and fatigued bodies to it so that they may be reanimated by reposing between soft sheets and feathers.
“There we find the most delightful hours of our existence, the hours of love and of sleep. The bed is sacred, and should be respected, venerated and loved by us as the best and most delightful of our earthly possessions.
“I cannot lift up the sheets of a hotel bed without a shudder of disgust. Who has occupied it the night before? Perhaps dirty, revolting people have slept in it. I begin, then, to think of all the horrible people with whom one rubs shoulders every day, people with suspicious-looking skin which makes one think of the feet and all the rest! I call to mind those who carry about with them the sickening smell of garlic or of humanity. I think of those who are deformed and unhealthy, of the perspiration emanating from the sick, of everything that is ugly and filthy in man.
“And all this, perhaps, in the bed in which I am about to sleep! The mere idea of it makes me feel ill as I get into it.”
–Guy de Maupassant, “The Rondoli Sisters”
Shut down the border already!!!
I would say Mr. de Maupassant was emotionally disturbed. Dirty people made him shudder in disgust, but he said nothing of all the wars and killing, hunger and sickness, and pain and suffering caused by people in expensive suits who live in spotless homes and drive fancy cars. You know, bankers and politicians?
I agree, though, that America cannot and should not expect to support the mass of humanity who want to swarm into this country, no matter what their health or status. The standard of living here will be unsustainable entirely. If you think circumstances in India, Pakistan, or Ethiopia are horrible, for example, just remember that those overcrowded living conditions with their lack of adequate food and clean water are headed this way. After doing the math, anyone should see that human over-breeding and destructive behavior cannot go on forever.
Clearly a terrorist plot to shut down the govt.! The bed bugs were taken to an undisclosed location and forced to watch Dinesh D’Souza’s “America”. 15 minutes into the film they confessed and named their co-conspirators at Bechtel.
Squeaky, nice poetry.
Eeeeeeeeew.