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STRIKE UP THE BAND!! Blow those horns! Wave those flags! I felt inclined to do a little click of the heels, Reader Dear. "These aren't bedbugs, I can tell you that," was the lovely announcement from the knowledgeable woman wielding the microscope at Dodson Bros Exterminating Company in Richmond, Virginia!

But then she continued to study our disturbing dots--those mysterious mites, baffling bits. (If not bedbugs, what were they?!)

She wanted to give us a definitive answer for each frustrating fragment, identify each puzzling particle.

"This one here's a little piece of fuzz," she said. "And the rest"--she looked carefully at each one--"they're just little pieces of dirt."

Wow. Amazing how much I liked hearing about dirt on motel sheets!





And then, as the friendly, smiling employees of Dodson Bros Exterminating Company in Richmond, Virginia, rejoiced with The Yard Man and me, the expert dashed away and returned with a vial full of curious crumbs.












Wow. Amazing how it pleased me to catch a glimpse of real live bedbugs!



(I'd have to say, however, it pleased me even more to toss away directions to Dodson Bros Exterminating Company in Richmond, Virginia, and go catch another glimpse of a real live doll baby who lives there in Richmond, Virginia!)

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