Now with more pets!

Hundreds of them! And unfortunately of the six-legged variety. (Ah, there’s the silver lining: they could be eight-legged.) Yes, I came home Thursday night to enjoy dinner with the girls. As I was clearing up, I threw some trash away and saw them, hundreds of ants marching around in what’s called a “pantry” here in Texas (but is really just a walk-in food closet). They were marching along the doorjamb, up through the crack of the door near the hinges, across the wall, along the putty where the counter meets the wall, across the backsplash above the stove, and all throughout the cabinet that houses used to house tea bags, cocoa, and coffee supplies. (Yes, they get their own cabinet.) (The coffee/tea supplies, not the ants.) (Although the ants put up a merry fight.)

The trouble was, although the little buggers were organized into a line, I couldn’t figure out where they were going or where they had come from. I spent over an hour killing, spraying, and wiping up the ants (to better see if fresh ants were being sent to the front lines). I discovered a new battalion on the uppermost shelf in the pantry, but for the most part, the ants I killed were staying dead; their number seemed to be finite.

Still. I threw out all of the tea bags and contents of the one cabinet where the ants were running amok and throwing a house party. The food in the pantry all seemed to be safe, but I did have to clear out all of the bottles of alcohol and wine I kept on the top shelf so the ants couldn’t hide. And I’ve been checking and re-checking to check for more ants. I thought for sure that when I returned from seeing Harry Potter that the invasion would have returned, but no ants. (Thank God, because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep knowing what was going on just one room away. BLECH.) I checked again the next morning – still no ants. I thought I was in the clear, but called the bug guy anyway. Unfortunately, he can’t make it out until Monday. This morning I found three or four ants crawling around, trying to stir up some trouble. I smooshed them, I sprayed them, and checked for reinforcements. Panic is just one or two ants away at this point. So, until the bug guy arrives with a nice big bottle of sanity disguised as heavy-duty bug-killing chemicals, I’ve decided to think of the ants as nice friendly pets. Pets who wouldn’t dare hurt me or cause a freakout.

Nice harmless pets. Mkay?

Tags: bugs