Good morning,
Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a windy day with a high temperature of sixty-eight degrees.
It’s make-up day for school pictures at Washington School.
I’ve written before about the return of bedbugs, and scourge that seemed only a part of our past, until recent outbreaks across America. I would have thought that, like the dustbowl, bedbugs belonged to another era.
Not only are they back, but they’re apparently impinging on America’s dating scene. Jessica Firger of the Wall Street Journal writes that bedbugs are a complication of romantic life. In Love Bites: Dating in the Age of Bedbugs, Firger writes that
On dating sites, where profiles often tout daters’ disease- and drug-free status, the bedbug fear is evident. One woman, who preferred her name not appear, said that several people on the OKCupid dating site stopped writing to her once they’d learned she was dealing with an infestation.
Exterminator Mike Masterson, owner of Isotech, a national pest-control firm, said he’s seen several relationships crumble under the strain of a bedbug infestation. (One couple, Isotech clients, nearly divorced over their bedbug episode, he said.)
I’m not sure what to make of this. I am sure that it reflects not just a change in social life, but a change in reporting at the Wall Street Journal. It’s unimaginable that the WSJ would have reported a story like this, mentioning the dating habits of younger Americans, twenty years ago. The paper was much too staid; any discussion would have involved only the possible income loss to hotels, and financial gains to exterminators & pesticide manufacturers.
The Friday Comments Forum will be on holiday today, but back next week. Many thanks for your contributions, and the feature will be resume with a new topic next Friday.
For today, there are more posts on the way.