Fixin’ to die, but not from the bed bugs

I walked into my hotel room in Midland, Texas, in the middle of the day last week and the maid was in the process of making my bed. The one that was laden with bed bugs, which had eaten away most of my lower extremities the night before.

“Would you mind changing the sheets?” I asked her. She said, “No not at all, we get that complaint all the time.”

I mentioned the issue to the front desk that morning and they, too, seemed rather unfazed by the fact that my legs were now a throbbing mass that looked something like the inside of a pomegranate.

“We could offer you a free breakfast,” they politely replied.

I thought about that for a moment and decided that unless scrambled eggs and bacon were some sort of magic potion that could be dabbed on the damage-inflicted areas and relieve the itching, I would probably pass and head to the bar where there might not be a cure but at least it could make me forget that I had these appendages dangling beneath me that needed attention.

It could have been the chocolate chip cookie on my pillow the next night that made the difference, but the new sheets seemed to be bug-free and my legs improved enough that they just looked like a game of Follow the Dots.

When the maid came back the next day she was ebullient, as if she’d just discovered the cure for cancer. She had swooped in, and despite the epidemic of bed bug-ridden guests, she had heroically saved me by finding perhaps the only set of sheets in the building that were “sanitized for my protection.”

Obviously bucking for a big tip, she began chatting me up as though I were a guest on  “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “Are you married?” “Do you have kids?” I parried with a lively, “How about yourself. Where are you from?”

Interestingly enough, turns out she’s from Venezuela, which allowed me to jump in with a ready and knowledgeable question: “Do you know Pablo Sandoval?”

Amazingly enough she not only didn’t know the Panda, she also thought the San Francisco Giants were redwood trees. But, I owed her. She changed the sheets that changed my legs.

It was right at the moment that I turned to go back to my preparation for a show I was doing that evening that she hit me with the big one. “How old are you,” she asked.

I told her and she replied, “Aren’t you worried about dying?”

It kind of stopped me in my tracks. I frankly never think about age, and I particularly don’t think about moving myself to the other side of the lawn.

“No, I don’t,” I said. “I’m far too busy to take the time to contemplate whether or not I might be available for dinner on Tuesday night.”

Besides which, I’ve got things to do.

I’ve got a haircut appointment next week, oh, and I almost forgot I’m going on vacation and I’d hate for my wife to take that trip by herself.

I’ve got global warming to contemplate. There’s an election I need to be a part of. The Warriors begin playing next month. And, I’m only up to the fifth season of “Game of Thrones.”

There’s a certain finality to dying that I am very much opposed to. It’s just something I don’t worry about. But, the really good news is when it does happen it won’t be in Midland, Texas, and it won’t be from bed bugs.

And for that, I thank the country of Venezuela.

Barry Tompkins is a longtime sports broadcaster who lives in Marin. Contact him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.