Still Buggy - So Many Ways

Sigh. It's one of those days.

The actual bugs are still around. Stepping up the fight. Got some Hot Shot no pest strips. These seem to have inherited the market after Shell was no longer doing its No Pest Strips thing. I've used them for several years now, waiting to distribute them around the house until the last thing before locking the house to head up north. Yes, I do read the labels. Not doing that this year, obviously. The plan now, in order to try to kill the bugs without killing us, is to remove everything I expect to need for the next week from my bedroom, set one inside the bed frame and one out in the open, and close the door for the week. Hmmm, shut the air vent too. No need to cool that room. Or swap air.

I'll be camping in the living room. The sofa is comfy enough. My chair, however, will get placed inside my bedroom. I'm sure some bugs have followed me to it, so I'll live with my camping chair for that week. Footrest ideas, anyone?

Spent some time on Wikipedia. On a hunch, after squishing several bugs this morning and getting bloody smears, I decided to research bed bugs. Everything fits.  They do, at least, repeatedly assure us they are NOT associated with filth. Whew! Doesn't help us get rid of them, however. I am thoroughly impressed with how difficult is it going to be. Ordered some plastic zipper bags for blankets on line. They'll be needed. ANother option for the whole room is raising its temperature to over 115 degrees. That likely happened previous summers, back when we didn't have any of the critters to kill. The site warned that many attempts to raise house temperatures that high have resulted in house fires. Must not have been in the Phoenix area. Just open a window....

Other things are "buggy," in a non-invertebrate kind of way. I got a check for just over $5 from Walmart earlier this week. Two choices: mail it north to my credit union, or try to cash it at Walmart. Since I was there picking up the pest strips this afternoon, I stopped and asked them could I cash it in the store? Sure I can... for a $4 charge. Yeah..... forget it. I'm glad they caught their error in charging me for a prescription, but it's going in the mail. This is beyond stupid.

I have been awaiting an order from China. It's a pair of face masks, and SpeedPAK is handling it. I've been tracking it, following it from outgoing customs to incoming customs, to a location in Ca, to Tolleson, AZ. Then on June 9, it allegedly landed in our local post office. With everybody else, that means it arrives here the next day. Not so much.

I chatted with our mailman a few days back, and he assured me they were not just holding on to it because its deadline for delivery is still a few weeks out, but in the previous three days (from when we talked) they'd had package deliveries dropped at the post office each equal to one week's worth. So I still should see it soon.

Soon came and went.

I called the post office to try to locate it by its tracking number. First she assured me that tracking information from another company does not necessarily match actual package whereabouts. But I could give her the number to check?  About 30 digits later she informed me that was a bogus number. I contacted the sender, letting (him?) know the situation, and  also telling (him?) that I would wait until the actual expected last day of delivery before complaining to eBay.

Still not satisfied, I looked up SpeedPak and read their customer comments. According to many, once inside the US, the post office gives it their own tracking number. However, there is no way to get that number from the post office so it could still be anywhere. Or nowhere.

Back to Walmart for a bit, I also looked for glycerine and alcohol, what the interwebs recommend for tanning snake skins. Yes, TP is back in stock, meat is on the shelves, even bleach is abundant. But neither of those items which I wanted so Rich could tan that skin. I guess it'll soon be "Rattler in the Freezer."

Sigh..............