I stayed in a motel in Salina, KS, last night, on my way to visit the in-laws in Denver. I checked in, looked for bedbugs as wise travelers are supposed to do, and didn’t find any evidence of them. I stored *almost* everything safely away from the bed, then maybe an hour later, I glanced up to see a bedbug crawling across the sheet.

I scooped it up in one of their plastic cups and took it to the front desk, then moved to my new room five doors down in my coat buttoned over my pajamas. You’ve never seen anyone clear out a motel room so fast! My car was parked right outside my room door, and I was slinging stuff out without even bothering to close bags. And, of course, nothing I didn’t absolutely have to have came inside the new room.

I spent the next few hours learning where bedbugs are likely to be, and what to do if your belongings may have picked up a few of them. Unfortunately, I had placed one of my two knitting bags on top of the sheets, moving it from one side of the bed to the other, and let it sit there for about half an hour. I stored my cosmetics bag on the luggage rack, too, and I read later that isn’t advisable.

So I kept those possibly-contaminated items far away from everything else for the rest of the trip. I emptied my cosmetic bag, examining the hard items and moving them to plastic bags when I got to Denver. I put my pajamas in the motel’s plastic laundry bag, tied tightly closed, as soon as I took them off. And my knitting bag is just slated for decontamination the way it is. (Apologies to my friend Nancy, who won’t be getting her slippers quite as quickly as I had hoped.)

And I swear by all I hold most sacred, everything I carry into a hotel or motel room from now on will live on the floor or in the bathroom. Or in the car!

Ewww!