Seeing bedbugs, our longest-lasting urban pests, in a new light

 

Bedbugs are the LeBron James of the pest world – thriving long past when they should be done. Respect their game.

Granted, I've never had to deal with them (by writing that, I likely guarantee that my next hotel stay will include a bedbug infestation), but I have respect for longevity. I give Tony Bennett credit for singing until he was in his 90s. I give Tom Brady credit for playing quarterback in the NFL until he was in his 40s. I give credit to Jimmy Walker for still earning a paycheck by doing those dreadful Social Security benefit commercials on low-level cable TV channels in his late 70s.

And give bedbugs credit for being a pest for hundreds of thousands of years.

All of that information came out of a report published last spring in Biology Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Royal Society, which I suspect is really just a group of baseball fans from Kansas City. 

The report says that bedbugs predate rats, cockroaches and neighbors who play thumping music late at night as pests. The Biology Letters genomic study suggests that bedbugs first feasted on the blood of bats before making the move over to humankind about 245,000 years ago.

It resulted in a division of bedbugs into two tribes, similar to the past few decades in American politics. One group of bedbugs attached themselves (literally) to humans, while the others stayed with bats in caves.

Scientists found that bat-associated bedbugs have seen a slow, steady drop in population for more than 60,000 years, while the human-associated bedbugs have seen a Wall Street-like combination of bull runs and bear runs – but mostly a bull run over the past 7,000 years, which encompasses the full lifetime of most of us. That period matches the rise of modern cities and makes bedbugs the OGs of the urban pest world, surpassing rats (a 5,000-year run) and cockroaches (about 2,000 years of being an urban pest). 

Some experts disagree, believing that lice or fleas might have been here first (making them the Leif Ericksons to the bedbugs' Christopher Columbus, if I'm able to make that comparison anymore). But people from the Royal Society (how can you argue with the Royal Society?) insist bedbugs are the first.

Bedbugs get a lot of bad publicity. For every hotel they invade, an estimated 5 million people get stressed that they're being overrun by the little guys. I've never seen a bedbug and until the past 15 years, my main thought of them was the implied menace of the "good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" threat during childhood (Young Brad's questions: Was it my responsibility to fight off the bedbugs? And was that even worse than the implied threat in the "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer that I would die while sleeping?).

Now I have a new appreciation for bedbugs. They're our partners. Bedbugs were there when the first cities were formed. They were there when Stonehenge was built and the alphabet was created and when Homer wrote the Iliad. Bedbugs were there for the rise and fall of Greece, when Jesus was born, when Rome fell, when the printing press was invented and during the Renaissance. They were there for the American Revolution, the Civil War, both world wars and even when the Daily Republic began business.

Bedbugs may be a pest, but they're our pest.

You may hate them, but I see bedbugs as they really are. Bedbugs are Art Garfunkel to humanity's Paul Simon. They're John Lennon to our Paul McCartney. They're Klay Thompson to our Steph Curry and they're Lewis to our Clark and Romeo to our Juliet.

Just don't let them bite!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Re-emphasis of RC Cola brings hope for a return to simplicity

Welcome back, RC Cola. Even though you never left.

The legacy soda brand, founded in 1905 and ranked third in American cola sales as recently as the 1960s (that's not recent, I guess), is still alive and kicking. And its parent company, Keurig Dr Pepper (recognize those products? Did you realize they are in one company? Did you realize Dr doesn't have a period after it? Should I stop asking parenthetical questions?) is looking to bring the brand back to significance.

Sort of.

Really, what they're doing is offering RC Cola as an alternative to the "healthy," trendy drinks that are increasingly filling the soda aisle at your grocery store. They're pitching RC Cola as a cola. Cheaper than the others and not as fancy. It's a cola you can drink.

I endorse this move, if for no other reason than I'm tired of a dozen variations of products that should be simple. Just sell me toilet paper, don't make me pick between soft and strong and three-ply and whatever else you can do. Just sell me Prego, don't make me pick between mushroom and meat and Italian sausage and garlic and chunky.

When it comes to soda, just sell me cola. I mean I want sugar-free colas, but I don't need any with a hint of lime or ginger or leather chunks.

Is it possible that a new emphasis on RC Cola is part of an overall return to simplicity? Probably not, but it is a brand with a proud history. RC Cola was a groundbreaker. It was the first soda in an aluminum can (check the history, but I believe sodas were sold in wooden thimbles until then). It was the first diet cola. It had John Wayne as its pitchman in the 1940s (Presumably saying, "I am the model of the powerful American man who goes to war, but I won't go to war because I'm an actor who drinks RC Cola.").

The legacy of RC Cola is strong. The fact that it's being pushed (lightly) so long after its peak suggests that this isn't a nostalgic move to lure back people who grew up drinking it (because those people are in their 60s or older and are not the prime market for the product). It suggests that Keurig Dr Pepper sees a path forward with something that worked before.

This isn't the only soda company going retro. Coca-Cola re-released Mr. Pibb, its version of Dr Pepper (again, no period!). What's next? The return of Fresca? Coke changing the name of Diet Coke to Tab? The rebound of Hires Root Beer? Barq's Grape Soda?

All would be fine, but I'm still holding out hope for the revival of Diet Rite, which I bought regularly when I was in my early 20s and fit a key demographic for Diet Rite: Cheap diabetics.

Diet Rite had a variety of flavors (for this portion, please ignore my earlier complaints about too many choices with products. Diet Rite was the exception that proved the rule): Regular cola, of course, and also cherry cola. But also red raspberry and tangerine and white grape. Diet Rite gave me a chance to try new flavors at 99 cents per six-pack.

Unfortunately, Diet Rite was discontinued in 2024. It was a subsidiary of . . . wait a minute, am I reading this right? Diet Rite was a subsidiary of the Royal Crown Company, makers of RC Cola!

Now I'm conflicted. I want RC Cola to survive, but I resent them for killing off a brand I hadn't purchased in 35 years!

Well, there is this. If the strategy to emphasize RC Cola succeeds, what's next? A return to AM radio stations playing top-40 music? Variety shows on network television? School teachers filling their break room with cigarette smoke?

In a world where we can go into a restaurant and purchase something that brands itself simply as a cola, will we buy a hamburger and fries and not have to decide if we want avocado on the burger and sweet potato fries? If so, sign me up. I'm tired of choices, except that Diet Rite White Grape soda.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

My joint rankings, which might put your nose out of . . . well, you know

There are 360 joints in the human body, which is interesting, since some joints allow us to make a 360-degree turn, right? (Realizing there are no joints that allow a full 360 degree pivot, so pivoting to a joke . . . ): You've got 360 joints. Who do you think you are, Snoop Dogg?

Anyway, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you've walked into this column, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart from "Casablanca." Joints are anywhere two bones meet ("So two bones meet in a bar in France and one says to the other, 'Bone jour.' "), but when we think of joints, we think of the main ones.

Therefore, let's rank the most important joints. Really.

If you don't like these listings, you probably didn't like my rankings of types of tape, fingers, pieces of household furniture, days of the week or dozens of other things.

Let's jump into this joint venture by counting down the top eight joints, based on their importance and how well they do their job.

8. Spine. We don't think of the spine as having joints (or I didn't until I searched the internet for how many joints are in our body), but it has plenty. And I will never, ever, ever insult the spine, since it's the most important part of our bodies other than our brain.

7. Wrists. If you think really hard, it's possible to imagine a world without wrists, presuming we retained the other arm joints. We'd be much stiffer-looking, but everyone would be wristless and we would all look the same. Wrists are valuable to help catch us when we fall and they make many things easier, but among the major joints? They're near the bottom.

6. Hips. We ignore our hips until they hurt (which is what prompted this column. My hip hurts), then we realize how many actions start with this joint. I'm not sure exactly how the hip works, but without the hips, we'd be unable to walk well, do the Merengue or use a hula hoop.

5. Knees. Like all joints, you are reminded how much you need this when you injure it. It's a big joint (kind of like the Astrodome) and allows us to walk, run and even crawl. The only downside to the knee is that it bends only one way.

4. Shoulders. These are the point guards of joints, designed to set up other parts of our body for success. Taking it further, they're the point guard nobody notices until the game ends and they have 11 assists and no turnovers. Shoulders make all the other arm motions possible, although we tend to think of those as being caused by our arms, elbows or hands. The shoulder is the literal connector.

3. Fingers. Crucial to our fine motor skills. If our fingers were jointless appendages, we'd be no different than many animals. We couldn't really pick things up. We couldn't make a fist. We couldn't flip anyone off. We couldn't make that "hang loose" symbol or snap or play a piano or knock on a door.

2. Elbows. Imagine life without elbows. Seriously. Think about how life would be with an elbow: You couldn't use utensils to eat. The elbow allows us to write, eat, brush our teeth and scratch. It also provides a great weapon if an irritating sibling is bugging you from behind, although that's just speculation on my part.

1. Ankles. Our most miraculous joints. Think of all the times you've stepped off a curb wrong or otherwise stumbled and rolled your ankle. In the vast majority of those times, your ankle kept you upright and you didn't get hurt. It's amazing. Our ankles keep us upright and prevent significant injuries to our knees (No. 5) and our hips (No. 6). I don't want to do live without an ankle.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.