Cinema Parasito

So what was with that bedbug remark in my last post? Well, I'll tell you.

Not too long ago, the Claridge Theater in Montclair, New Jersey was discovered to have been infested with bedbugs. When I went to a buffet party at a friend's house, she hoped that no one at the party had been to the Claridge to see a movie because she didn't want any bedbugs infesting her happy home.

Some folks didn't know about it - which leads to a related story. Recently, the Claridge began screening Madonna's movie W./E., and on my Facebook page, I rhetorically asked if a movie theater with bedbugs were really any worse than a movie theater showing a movie directed by Madonna. Almost as soon as I posted that impudent remark, two friends of mine - friends I know from the area I live in, not just online - thanked me for letting me know there were bedbugs at the Claridge and vowed not to go there any time soon. I couldn't believe what I had just done, and I was proud of it - I helped kill business for Madonna's movie! :-D But, more importantly, I got the message out about the bedbug infestation at the Claridge and saved a couple of friends a whole lot of trouble.

This bedbug scare is driving me up the wall. I used to go to the Claridge with a ladyfriend of mine who lives in Montclair, and we haven't seen a movie together for ages. It's getting impossible now to do anything like that without having to worry about bedbugs. Every time I go into New York, where bedbugs have been spotted even in posh hotels, my mother expects me to strip naked the moment I get home and take a shower. Fortunately, it's not much of a bother to get into the shower once I get inside. But the ritual of throwing all of my clothes into a waiting plastic bag, tying the bag up, and tossing the bag aside before I even get into the shower is becoming an annoyance. Not to mention having to wait several days to wash my clothes in the bag because I have to make sure any bedbugs on them (there are never any) are dead from lack of oxygen.

This country is really beginning to disappoint me. Bedbugs used to be a thing of the past - the very distant past - and now they've retuned with a vengeance. I suspect that a disinvestment in public health over the years - fear of big government, you know - has allowed maladies commonly associated with Third World countries, like this malady, to affect the United States. As for me, I have absolutely no confidence in the bedbug epidemic being brought under control any time soon. Because lately we Americans have demonstrated that we're as good as eliminating public health hazards as we are at establishing public health insurance.

And as for the Claridge, I will not return there until that parasitic infestation is removed. That goes for the bedbugs, too. ;-)