Inktober 2019 Day 25

Don’t Sleep Your Pets/Pests

Inktober 2019 Day 25

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. Maybe.

We’ve all read the alarming claims about dust mites and their droppings. I seem to remember reading that after five years of use a pillow is 50 percent dust mite poop by weight.  When I google now, the first result tells me that “Ten percent of the weight of a two year old pillow can be composed of dead mites and their droppings” Well, I can’t verify that, but let’s just say one finds alarming information if one looks for it.

Things like dust mites as well as  pollen and airborne and sheet and pillow borne irritants are mostly invisible to the human eye....but perhaps not so unnoticed by the human immune system?

I’m trying to work on these invisible sleep disruptors: supposedly mite proof pillow covers, air purifiers that zap the microscopic contaminants, diligent washing of everything in very hot water... but everyone in the house still wakes up snuffling.  I recently argued with my spouse that it is not necessarily the natural human condition to wake up coughing with a stuffy nose every morning.

But is it the dust mites? Who knows. They probably aren’t helping.... but in five years, perhaps we will discover they are like dogs and cats- actually a boon to the immune system of the not already allergic.

We don’t have any pets, except the very small kind.  If dust mites were a few thousand times larger, they might not make cute domestic cohabitants, but at least we could see them.  And they are sort of amusing to draw.