Soiled sheets

Cockroaches get everywhere.

On the tiny island where I stayed, I met a Swiss couple who had been there for a few nights. It seemed that somehow, cockroaches had made it into their bed, in spite of the mosquito net tucked under the corners of the bed. They reported waking up to finding a cockroach hanging out on the, er, wet spot of their bed.

Another couple I met on the boat reported the same thing. It seems that cockroaches are attracted to the proteins left over from sex.

Score 1 for me, I assumed -- I'm by myself, no ladies in sight, and so that should mean that the cockroaches will leave me alone, right. The swiss had been staying in a fancy $20 per night hut, while I had opted for a cheaper $15 a night room. I took some rather perverse pleasure in the idea that they were paying more money than me, yet had to share their bed with cockroaches, while I was free of the little beasties.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

You see, my sheets were also soiled -- I just didn't know it. Each night, after the electricity got cut, tiny insects would descend upon my bed -- little creatures that were small enough to get through the holes in the net. They weren't mosquitoes thank goodness, but they still buzzed around me, landed on my body, and did their best to suck my blood.

Thus, For an hour or two every evening, before falling asleep, I'd spend my time, in a semi-panicked state, hopelessly swatting at the unseen creatures, occasionally scoring a hit, and smooshing a dead insect that had lingered for a moment too long on my leg or stomach.

After a few nights of this, my sheets had become a mass graveyard for dead insects -- mostly black stains, with a bit of red here and there, every time I'd hit one of the guys that had been sucking on me for a bit.

And thus, on my last night in the room, I woke up to see a cockroach at the foot of my bed -- not nestling in human proteins, but milling around the collected corpses of dead insects.

Ick ick ick.