This one’s from a while ago, but soon the battle will begin anew:
Until today, our battle for survival had been fought without the use of much in the way of deadly force. The ants would force their way into the house by whatever means they could; through gaps between window screens, through badly closed doors, and God only knows how many other ways. They would form a line of battle down the wall, across the table or floor, and overrun everything in their path. Until today, they were the locusts of San Carlos. They were the aliens from Independence Day, simply devouring everything in sight and retiring fat and happy to their ant living rooms and easy chairs, secure in the knowledge that all we had to combat them was Windex. That’s right, Windex.
At a glance, it appeared to work. It seemed to kill the 6 legged menace. We’d spray them and they’d lie there, seemingly dead. But if not disposed of immediately, the dead would arise and begin their scourging anew (well, either that or the ants were the insectile version of Army Rangers–“no one gets left behind”).
Why Windex? I’ll tell you why. Deanna, it seems, has a profound sensitivity to chemical odors of any sort, and a pronounced horror of anything other than a sponge and tepid water coming into contact with the blessed sanctity of the house’s “cooking surfaces” and countertops (sometimes hard going when they are littered with pine nuts and little bits of Martian lettuce). So we spray Windex on the ants and they laugh at us.
Today, however, was different. Today I vowed to purchase a non-chemical based weapon of mass destruction–the new, plant-based Raid. No way could she deny us this, I thought. As I stood in line at Wal-Mart to pay for our wonderful deliverance, I heard the middle-aged woman at the register to my right cry out at something skittering by on the ground near a cooler full of soda. “Oh, look,” she said. “He a alligator! He a baby alligator!”
I looked and saw a gray-green streak about 5 or 6 inches long run past me into the garden center like Quasimodo running for the Notre Dame cathedral. No, I thought. He a garden variety lizard.
“Baby got no tail,” she said to the lizard’s retreating, tail-less back. “He need one o’ them handicap signs. Little man in the wheelchair? Mmm Hm.”
I was tempted to try out my Raid on the lizard, but he reached the refuge of a large BBQ and disappeared. I put the escaped alligator out of my mind and paid for the Raid, ecstatic at the thought of our soon to be ant-free existance.
I arrived home with trembling hands, barely able to take the beautiful can from the bag. “Hey, Deanna,” I said. “Plant based Raid. Now we can kill the ants without fear of reprisal, after they retreat to the sanctuary of our cooking surfaces and countertops.”
“Plant based?” she asked. “Must be from blahdeblahblah.”
She picked up the can and examined it carefully. “No,” she said. “It’s from flahdeflahflah. I wouldn’t have thought that.”
Apparently not. Deanna, it seems, in addition to a degrees in plant husbandry and the equine arts, has also studied extensively in plant-based insect killing. Regardless, she pointed the can at a single ant and pressed the button. A small jet of blessed death reduced the ant to a withered, 6-legged corpse, but before she could move on to the next, a problem arose. “I just know this is going to give me a headache,” she said.
Don’t spray it then, I thought. Silly woman. Go look at horsies on the internet and leave the killing to me. “I’ll do it,” I said, and took the can.
I lifted my weapon and began to rain death on those little bastards. I was the Grim Reaper of the insect world, harvesting with my plant-based scythe and all fell before me. When the blood lust abated a bit, I saw there hadn’t really been that many ants in the kitchen and dining area. I had come upon a small expeditionary force. My cat sat in the den and looked at me with a stoned look on her face and began to eat Bella’s food. After polishing off much of that, she moved on to the cupboards and began looking for potato chips. I decided to open a few doors.
The ants in the kitchen and dining area that survived will not forget me. And I’d like to think their fallen brothers, when they reach their little ant Valhalla, will hoist a mug in my honor for defeating them honorably on the field of battle. And when their kinsmen arrive seeking vengeance, my plant-based sword and I will be ready.
A Work in Progress 