The time I slept with 31 bed bugs to be more comfortable with chaos

I called the experiment "total immersion."

In Wageningen, I slept on the floor and rode bikes with unraveled chains and burnt blenders for not knowing how European voltage works. My friend woke up to my alarm at 9:30 every day. We would stretch, fry eggs, and laugh about my new crush on Greek women. I didn't do much those days—eat, read, write, or think. The sun would fade, and we'd say, "Let's eat cheese at the river."

By my visit's end, we discussed where I'd go next. I'm used to planning, so these late-minute decisions were an experiment of inviting chaos into my life to see how I would react. We considered Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Frankfurt, Naples, Marsella, and Athens. I flew to Porto and took a €21 train to Apolonia station, Lisbon. The French guy next to me smelled more luxurious than the cheese I had the day before the entire three-and-a-half hours of the trip.

I spent the first days thinking about everything I had to do and not doing it. I walked miles to a Cuban Salsa class and, two minutes away from it, decided to read Pessoa next to a chicken instead.

I realized I had never felt this happy in a long time.

The next day I woke up with hundreds of bed bug bites.

"I feel so sorry and totally awful about this," said the landlord.

"It's ok; I killed a few," I said.

I washed the linen, put all my stuff in a corner, and waited until 7 am Colombia time to call my dad as I thought about a date I would have the next day.

"They might be under your skin," my dad said.

"Oh," I said.

"Put plastic on top of the mattress while you buy a new one."

"Ok."

So I went to a mini supermarket and bought trash bags and tape.

Then I realized. I had more bites. The bugs hated the heat, but so did my clothes. European exterminators didn't work on Sundays (or the day after if they didn't want to.) Only my workout clothes were safe, and I had nowhere to sit but the bathtub. The bathroom smelled, and I ran out of eggs from happy chickens.

"I can join you for company," said a friend.

I went to a café. Four Colombian women had every waiter missing orders. I didn't tell them I was also Colombian.

"Your (overpriced) plan is deactivated," said my travel insurance

"Deactivated?"

They said it was a problem with my health insurance which I'm paying Colombian minimum wage to.

I ordered a descafeinado and started writing an essay on biblical cosmology. I deleted almost as many words as I typed.

When my friend arrived, we bought ramen and took it to the beach.

The waves almost got my food, the broth was spicier than I liked, and most men couldn't see a woman's cleavage without being spotted. Nothing was as planned.

Around 11:30 p.m., I took a shower at home and flip-flopped uphill to my hotel. The air conditioner didn't work, the bathroom smelled, and the itchiness woke me up at 4 a.m. But at least the exterminator was coming the next day.

"Put lavender oil on your skin," said another friend I dined with the next day. "Those fuckers hate it."

"I will," I said and then headed to a Hip Hop class that ended after every supermarket closed.

Instead of taking my landlord's offer for a full refund and going elsewhere, I went to Ikea to discover it was self-service. I carried a tote bag, backpack, Ikea bag with a lamp, duvet, pillow covers, and a 137 cm x 190 cm mattress across the parking lot. The Uber said something and stopped a few meters away from my apartment, adding to my walk.

"I'm submerged in chaos," I messaged the friend I had ramen with.

The exterminator moved everything from the apartment except for seven-bed bugs, which were talking to each other on the mattress and floor area around it.

"It's normal," said the exterminator.

"Can they still bite me?"

"Yeah."

"Is it safe?"

"Yeah, if they don't bite you."

"Oh."

I carried the bed bug-filled 137 cm x 190 cm mattress down the four narrow floors and put it next to the garbage and a smaller mattress from another unfortunate sleep enthusiast. I showered and headed to my date with a Chinese girl.

We met at a bench at Miradouro da Graça.

"I only know one thing about Colombia," she said, "Gabriel Garcia Marquéz."

I thought she would say drugs, danger, and Pablo Escobar. Most Portuguese people I met that week did.

We talked about how she rejected a guy because she didn't like his voice, how mine was fineish, and what the sun looks like when it's horny. I didn't find anything I anticipated on the date, but everything I didn't anticipate was there.

At home, I made my new bed on my newly vacuumed cracking floor and scavenged the uninfected pile of clothes resting on my dining table next to my laptop, books, bags, jewelry, Ikea bag, and chicken and pasta. I turned on my new lamp and realized I didn't buy pillows. I made one with my bed linen and took my still-wet face mask from the washing machine.

And my mind experienced the greatest silence it has ever heard.

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Your turn: share about a situation most people would deem unfavorable but you were glad to experience.