Bedbug Infestation (Cutie Patootie Species)
I am Azmi, writing from my small apartment in Meknes, and I have an announcement that my landlord would probably misunderstand: my bed has a confirmed bedbug infestation, exactly one bug, and I have no plans to remove her. Her name is not important because she answers to supper, to head rubs, and to the sound of the blanket being folded back. She is a rabbit, a certified cutie patootie of the species Oryctolagus cuniculus, and she has claimed the left side of my mattress like she pays rent there.
The first vignette happens around ten in the evening. I walk into the bedroom with a book and find her already in position, loafed in the warm dent my pillow leaves behind. She does not move. She does not even open both eyes. One ear rotates toward me like a sleepy radar dish, confirms that I am the familiar human who brings parsley, and rotates back. I stand there holding my book like a guest in my own room, and honestly, that feels correct.
The ten o clock pillow inspection
Every night she performs the same inspection. She sniffs the pillowcase, digs twice with her front paws, circles once, and flops against the pillow with a sigh I can feel through the mattress. I have learned not to rush this ceremony. If I try to place the pillow first, she moves it with her nose until it sits at the approved angle. If I fold the blanket wrong, she refolds it with her teeth. My role is to hold the corners and admire the craftsmanship.
The second vignette belongs to midnight. I wake up because something warm is breathing against my shoulder, and it is her, pressed along my side like a furry hot water bottle with opinions. In the dark I can hear her teeth grinding softly, which in rabbit language means contentment, and I lie there grinning at the ceiling of my bedroom in Meknes while the street outside goes quiet. People pay good money for comfort like this. Mine costs hay and the occasional slice of banana.
Somewhere around one in the morning comes the stretch. She extends all four paws straight out behind her, the famous bunny sprawl, and takes up more mattress than any creature her size should be able to occupy. Physics bends around a comfortable rabbit. I curl along the edge with one foot hanging off, and I do not mind, because watching her sleep that deeply feels like being trusted with something fragile. If you have never been chosen as a rabbit pillow, I recommend it above every luxury bedding brand.
The three in the morning blanket summit
At three comes the blanket summit. She wakes, decides the blanket arrangement is wrong, and begins rearranging it with great seriousness while standing on my legs. Dig, dig, tug, circle, flop. Dig, dig, tug, circle, flop. I whisper suggestions that are ignored. Eventually she settles directly on top of my feet, which fall asleep within minutes, and I decide that feet are overrated anyway. This is the part of the night I described in my bed takeover log, where I documented who really owns the bed, and the answer remains unchanged: she does.
Dawn brings the final vignette, my favourite. The first grey light comes through the shutters, and she climbs onto my chest, plants her front paws on either side of my chin, and stares into my face from a distance of four centimetres. Her whiskers tickle my nose. Her nose wiggles at approximately the speed of my waking heart. This is her alarm clock service, and it is far more effective than any phone buzzer, because you cannot snooze a rabbit who is already licking your chin.
Friends ask whether I worry the infestation will spread. To the insides, all over, everywhere, as the original pest report joked. The answer is yes, and I welcome it. Rabbit hair now lives permanently in my blankets, my sweaters, and one scarf I no longer bother to de-lint. A single whisker turned up in my notebook last week and I left it there as a bookmark. Total containment has failed and I have never been happier about a household failure.
What surprises me most is how much structure she has given my evenings. I used to scroll on my phone until midnight. Now I go to bed on time because someone small and warm is waiting there, and the evenings I once wasted have become the calmest hours of my day. My evening rest photo diary shows how seriously we take our wind-down routine, and the bedbug is always the star of that show, mid-flop, ears at rest, eyes half closed.
So here is my official statement as the infested party: species confirmed as cutie patootie, removal impossible and undesired, spread welcomed and encouraged. No exterminator will ever be called. Monitoring continues from under the blanket, where I currently type this with one hand while the other rests on a warm loaf who is pretending not to notice. If a bedbug ever loved a human back, I am living inside that story, and I would not trade one night of it for a whole hotel of empty, rabbit-free beds.
Next in this chapter…
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