I Think I Got Crabs from My Ex-Boyfriend

I read on the Internet that the incubation period for pubic lice can be as long as six weeks. So I wasn't sure at first if I got crabs from my ex-boyfriend or from the linens in a shady hotel in Las Vegas. I hoped the ex-boyfriend.

The term boyfriend probably needs a revise. Though I wasn't sleeping with anyone else while I was seeing him, Erick had a tendency to get very drunk and have sex with 21-year-old girls from the Midwest who were new to New York. So, even though I hadn't been with him for more than a month, it wasn't improbable that six weeks before I noticed the crabs he had hooked up with one of these tanning-bed babes.

I may have been the victim of unclean sheets. There was the room I stayed in at the Hard Rock Hotel: vomit stains on the carpet, one tube sock under the bed and the faint odor of stale Budweiser. This kind of disarray is the reason my cousin travels with his own set of bedding. What's lame is that I was in town to cover Comdex, a computer trade show, for the technology magazine I work for. Clearly, picking up crabs in Vegas isn't what it used to be.

My friends were hoping it was Erick. "It has to be him," they said. You know they were thinking: If you can get pubic lice without sex, then I could be next. I smiled thinking of them furiously scratching at their crotches after they hung up the phone with me.

I was hoping it was Erick too, because I needed some kind of motivation to stop fooling around with him. He'd told me several times that he didn't want a relationship, and I'd already told him three times that I didn't want to see him anymore. Nevertheless, I somehow always find myself dialing his number on Saturday afternoons?and kissing him goodbye on Sunday mornings. He has these beautiful, wet, brown eyes that make me a little warm. But it was getting silly. Erick's four years younger than me and still thinks rock stars who snort cocaine are the absolute coolest thing ever. I needed to move on.

Here's how I found out I was infested. It's 2 a.m. on Friday night and I'm in bed reading a short novel called The Reader. It's a coming-of-age story about a German teenage boy who sexes up an older ex-Nazi guard. All of the sex seems to take place in a "hot kitchen" where the boy is always gently laying his hands on either side of the hefty woman's childbearing hips. It was during one of these scenes that I reached down to scratch.

There had been an itchy thing happening for probably a week or so. But feminine itching isn't that unusual. Weird discharges regularly make an appearance in the crotch of my underwear?just ask the Korean launderers up the street?so the odd black flecks appearing on my cotton crotches didn't seem too odd.

But that night my feminine itch turns into a painfully intense mosquito-itch that seems to ebb and flow with an oceanic intensity. And when my hand emerges from the moist tangle of hair, I'm staring at what look exactly like two miniature crabs. I'm repulsed. It's the kind of grade-A disgust that I feel when those 3-inch cockroaches appear in the middle of the clean white bathroom sink. And my cunt isn't porcelain.

A half-second later I'm on my feet bent way over so I'm face-to-face with my pubic hair. (Thank you Jivamukti Yoga Center for giving me the flexibility to see my crotch?om shanti.) Then I move to the bathroom, where I remain for hours sifting and picking through my nether regions.

I call my doctor's answering service. "Is this an emergency?" inquires the operator. I imagine this woman fields some tough calls through the night?cardiac arrests, severed limbs, excessive bleeding. Do my crabs qualify? "Not quite an emergency, but can he please call me as soon as possible?" I say.

Dr. Levine calls back at 8 a.m. Telling this man about my crabs is no easy feat. Dr. Levine was recommended to me by my uncle, my father's brother. All I need is for my entire gossip-riddled family to get a hold of this delicious tidbit. In my favor is Dr. Levine's atrocious bedside manner. He never remembers whom I'm related to, and in this case I don't remind him. "Er, Dr. Levine, uh, well, I've been having this itching you know... And then last night I saw some bugs?" The coy approach doesn't work.

"What do you mean, bugs? Itching where?"

In the background I can hear cartoons, children laughing and, though I could be imagining this, the hiss and pop of bacon frying.

"I think it's crabs."

Levine tells me about the over-the-counter remedies, how to use Rid or Nix, and what to do if they don't work: "Come see me." And he's off the phone and back to his cozy life.

I gather every single piece of clothing and bedding in my room, throw it in a laundry bag and flee my apartment. I drop the 35-pound bag off at the laundromat, hit the CVS and pay cash for the Rid lice remover with my eyes downcast.

When I get home, my roommate watches as I furiously throw the pillows off the couch, the mattress off my bed, the towels from the bathroom and create a second laundry pile. I run from room to room spraying the Rid aerosol stuff and sweeping and Lysoling the apartment.

Bless her heart, she doesn't ask me why. She just sits and stares from her seat at the table where we eat. Finally, on my way to the shower wrapped in a towel that I plan on throwing away, I mutter, "I have crabs." I feel them nipping at me as I speak.

"What?"

"Crabs. Pubic lice. I have them. I am in the process of delousing. I'm sorry. I sprayed the couch. I'm washing the towels."

My roommate is cracking up. "It's okay. A friend's roommate had them last year. Just wash everything we share," she says. "And let me know when you're done delousing."

She runs into her bedroom. I won't see her again for 24 hours, at which point she'll say, "It has to have been Erick."

I hit the shower and apply Rid to my pubic hair. It's a thin gel that has a nauseatingly sweet smell; I use the included comb to pull the eggs out of my hair. Minutes later, I'm standing in a pile of brown dots?the nits, according to the Rid box. I rinse. And repeat. For good measure I give myself a nice porn star shave.

The next week every time I went to the bathroom I spent at least 10 minutes examining my vagina for black specks. There were only two or three hairs left down there, but I carefully pulled each one in my diligent hunt. All the while, my brain roiled: Was it Erick or not?

We hadn't spoken since his ex-girlfriend?a Tri-Delt, I think, from Ohio?decided to spend her winter break with him. I called. There was some chitchat. Then I went for it.

"Um, Erick, have you ever had crabs?"

There's an awkward, heavy pause. And I think: Yes! He did it. What an asshole. I'll never sex him up again.

"Yeah. But it was two years ago."

"In college?"

"Yeah, I remember I was so pissed at my girlfriend at the time. But she swore she didn't have them. It was like really weird. I never understood how I got them."

"That is weird."

"Why do you ask, anyway?"

I told him my story, and he said it was horrible. And then I asked him if he wanted to see a movie on Saturday.

I kissed him goodbye Sunday morning.