Dude. My pets are feral.

Because I know you just can’t get enough of my pet ants, I thought I’d fill you in on yesterday’s exciting adventures.

My day started off a little hopeful – not seeing any of my pets tends to do that to me. I was a little more dubious about whether I’d get a call back from my pest control people. They were a referral from my ex-mother-in-law and she’s usually a good source for these sorts of things (she manages a few dozen rental properties), but my experiences with the pest control receptionist on Friday left me a little worried. Especially the whole “Yes, we can absolutely fit you in today!” followed by a day’s worth of silence and then an “Oh! I’m so glad you called, but we’re not going to be able to get out there until Monday,” when I called her back. So let’s just say I was a little skeptical.

The plan was to call after lunch if I hadn’t heard from them (they were going to call to give me a 30-minutes heads up). Luckily, I got a call at about 10:30. I booked it home (narrowly missing two speed traps) and Mr. Bug Guy was waiting for me. He was nice as could be and didn’t once look at me like I was crazy when I showed him where the activity was and told him my theories. But he did tell me point blank that I have feral ants that are not only impervious to chemical sprays, but actually breed and multiply their nests when so attacked. I blinked rapidly. I thought I had misheard him. Feral ants! Pshaw! I’ve heard of feral cats and feral hogs and even feral humans if someone desperately wants to make a point about someone’s behavior, but feral ants?! I would google it when I got back to work. While all that was rapidly processing through my mind, I merely repeated “Feral ants?” back to Mr. Bug Guy to prompt him to continue. He explained that because we couldn’t napalm the little suckers (I may be paraphrasing), we’d have to use bait. At which point I became somewhat alarmed. “Does that mean I have to let them live? And scurry around my kitchen?!” Turns out it means exactly that.

Um, yeah. That’s going to go over well.

So. I will be taking about a million showers and checking the kitchen and food pantry every five seconds to make sure the invasion hasn’t returned…and that if it does, it stays contained. Because I can NOT take much more squick this week. I’m all full up on squick, thanks. Oh and one last thing: turns out, they are called feral ants – or, more commonly, sugar ants. I found them here. Now if we could just use their powers for good and not evil, it looks like I could maybe convince them to drive out the fire ants that have taken over the backyard. Heh. If I’m back to making devious plans, I must be feeling better.

Tags: bugs