Kill Them All

I have killed exactly four ants, one in my kitchen and three in my living room. Another ant crawled across Imaginary Boy's hand the other night . . . and I couldn't find him as he fell to the floor. So five ants. Five ants in my house.

Now we all know there is no such thing as five ants. For those of us who have not lived an ant battle in person, I'm sure you've see some show on PBS where they show you an ant's life. And it's not all cute and cartoony and "let's cooperate with the dancing circus ladybug." It's swarmy. They come in swarms. As my brother pointed out, "Those ants they're shifty, you can't trust them."

Now I don't know why the ants want in my living room. As a rule, I don't have any food in the house (though lately I have been grocery shopping . . . I do have an orange on the table) and I don't know what they think they will find crawling around my living room. But they just can't be there. They're not welcome . . . I have major ant damage from childhood.

When we lived in Wyandotte, there were a lot of secrets to our house. One being that when the sugar rationing of the 1940's happened, whoever owned the house decided to hoard sugar. Up in the attic, where the sugar police wouldn't find it. That would have been fine . . . I'm okay with needing sugary goodness, except that when the rationing was over, they left the sugar. Or forgot about the sugar. Or thought that the rationing would come back? I don't know. But the ants found the sugar and then the rest of the house, and ate it. We did not know this . . . I was five, so I was blissfully unaware of most things, except that my Mother was perpetually at war with the ants. And the ants were everywhere. And the ants would not stop (and my Mother is not one to give up and be carried away by ants, either). I can still remember the taste of Diazinon in the air each spring. The hockey puck orange ant traps (that we used as hockey pucks). The yelling at the ants. It was worse than the Amityville horror . . . with ants.

My parents found out about the sugar much later. I think they decided to sell the house (among other reasons) when it was discovered that the house was pretty much just wall paper and siding with nothing in between, because the ants ate it all. I hate ants. I feel my Mother's disgust and hear her screams. They make me anxious . . . if they are indoors. I don't even really like them outdoors.

So I have just treated my foundation with enough Triazacide to kill anything that walks within a foot of my house. The butterflies can flit in other people's yards . . . must . . . kill . . . the ants.

Sad thing is . . . I was once recruited for the Entomology program at State (I think because they wanted more girls) so I understand Integrated Pest Management and some Bug Conservation. But with ants, I just don't care. Sorry environment . . . and spiders.