The Cost of Peace
A couple weeks ago, The Mister shared an article with me from his Grit magazine. The author was writing about the concept of "peace of mind", or as he argued the commodity of "peace of mind". The article went on to explain that for all the businesses, insurance companies, doctors, prescriptions, etc. that advertise "peace of mind", the place this author actually found it was back at home, doing his daily "chores" on his acreage. While I was surprised The Mister had forwarded an article full of philosophical sentimentality, we both agreed with the premise and could easily relate to that sense of peace that comes from being out on our property.
Perhaps while reading the short article, I might have absentmindedly scratched an itch on my arm, and a yawn might have escaped me. For unbeknownst to me at the time, something was most certainly affecting my own peace of mind.
As it turns out, we have bed bugs. These little creatures were doing everything they could to "damage my calm" as Jacob would say. They had infected our bed and were dining on our arms and fingers on a nightly basis. We were getting eaten alive and we were both losing significant sleep in the process. We originally thought we were getting bitten by spiders and we had been doing what we could to rid ourselves of any arachnids in our bedroom. When it became clear, however, that the problem was actually bed bugs, we immediately called an exterminator. We vacuumed, laundered and cleaned every infected crevice. We slept on air mattresses in the living room until the exterminator could arrive and then we gladly (well, almost gladly) handed over a significant check to have our house fumigated with liquid and dust-form chemicals to rid ourselves of these bastard insects.
While I can agree that "peace of mind" is not really found in an insurance policy, or in a prescription to ward off illness, I would certainly say that blasting these critters with chemicals and wrapping my mattresses and box springs in what I hope to be Teflon-coated, bug-proof, nothing-gest-through-this material, is providing us some sense of "peace of mind". While it might take me a few nights to convince myself that nothing is actually crawling on me while I sleep, and I might continually check my arms and fingers for bites, I expect to feel much better about crawling back into bed now that these men have dropped chemical warfare creepy crawly enemy.
Peace of mind, as it turns out, can in fact, be bought. At least until the 90-day guarantee runs out.
Perhaps while reading the short article, I might have absentmindedly scratched an itch on my arm, and a yawn might have escaped me. For unbeknownst to me at the time, something was most certainly affecting my own peace of mind.
As it turns out, we have bed bugs. These little creatures were doing everything they could to "damage my calm" as Jacob would say. They had infected our bed and were dining on our arms and fingers on a nightly basis. We were getting eaten alive and we were both losing significant sleep in the process. We originally thought we were getting bitten by spiders and we had been doing what we could to rid ourselves of any arachnids in our bedroom. When it became clear, however, that the problem was actually bed bugs, we immediately called an exterminator. We vacuumed, laundered and cleaned every infected crevice. We slept on air mattresses in the living room until the exterminator could arrive and then we gladly (well, almost gladly) handed over a significant check to have our house fumigated with liquid and dust-form chemicals to rid ourselves of these bastard insects.
While I can agree that "peace of mind" is not really found in an insurance policy, or in a prescription to ward off illness, I would certainly say that blasting these critters with chemicals and wrapping my mattresses and box springs in what I hope to be Teflon-coated, bug-proof, nothing-gest-through-this material, is providing us some sense of "peace of mind". While it might take me a few nights to convince myself that nothing is actually crawling on me while I sleep, and I might continually check my arms and fingers for bites, I expect to feel much better about crawling back into bed now that these men have dropped chemical warfare creepy crawly enemy.
Peace of mind, as it turns out, can in fact, be bought. At least until the 90-day guarantee runs out.
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