While channel surfing recently, I came across a show on the Discovery Channel that was discussing (STOP reading this! Unless you want to be totally creeped out for the rest of your life, you will NOT want to read the rest of this column! Trust me, I wrote it, and I’m not going to read it.) …DUST MITES.

In case you don’t know (I really wish I didn’t), dust mites are microscopic arachnids (like spiders) that live in your house. In fact, some of them live in your bed. And, get this: they eat your skin. Apparently, we all shed little bits of skin constantly (even Martha Stewart), and this dead skin is considered fine dining by your average dust mite. While you lay in bed, visions of sugar plums (or possibly Xena, Warrior Princess) dancing in your head, these tiny creatures, looking exactly like they should be starring in a low-budget horror movie, are feasting on discarded flesh. Your discarded flesh.

Creeped out yet? It gets worse. Right now, you probably have some dust mites on your own personal person. They are living in your eyebrows, or maybe (I don’t even want to consider this possibility) down in your private regions. I’m sorry I had to say that, but you deserve to know.

Why on Earth isn’t the public alarmed by this? Our homes, not to mention our bodies, have been invaded by nightmarish flesh-eating bugs. It’s only a matter of time until these dust mites get sick of eating dead skin (wouldn’t you?) and start going after skin that we are not, strictly speaking, finished with. We can hope they go after the lawyers and politicians first, but there is no guarantee of this.

Obviously, a government task force needs to be created to examine the dust mite threat, and come up with a sure-fire solution that will cost billions of dollars and not work (From the same people that brought you the war on drugs and the war on poverty, now presenting the new and equally-expensive “War on Dust Mites”.) Only then will the public take this matter seriously. It wouldn’t hurt to get Jerry Springer interested in this topic, either (Next on Jerry Springer: dust mites ruined my sex-change operation).

Okay, maybe I’m overreacting (that would be so unlike me). Maybe we can peacefully co-exist with our tiny little dust mite friends. After all, they, too, are part of God’s wondrous creation. And maybe we even need dust mites. Maybe if it wasn’t for them, we’d all be swallowed up by piles of our own dead skin.

Oh wait, there’s one thing I forgot to mention. You know how some people are allergic to dust ? Well, according to the Discovery Channel, what they are actually allergic to is “dust mite doo doo”. It’s everywhere! We are constantly breathing it in! Still think peaceful coexistence is an option? I thought not.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a long hot shower. And burn my sheets.

by Joe Shockley, October 1, 1999