Ick

So we have a bit of an ant problem on the windowsill in the bedroom. It’s actually a recurring ant problem that began a few years ago. I happened to notice an ant crawling along the wall one day, zigzagging its way toward the bathroom. I probably thought something like, “hmmm… an ant…” and then plucked it off the wall with a tissue and tossed it in the garbage, never to be seen again. Except I suddenly noticed ANOTHER ant, not too far from where the first had met his demise. And then, like in some sort of horror movie, my eyes panned away from the isolated surface I’d been looking at, and slowly and apprehensively took in the entire bedroom wall. (This would be the part in the horror movie where the camera focuses in on my face as I scream in revulsion.) There were ants all over the wall, marching in a little line from the window to the bathroom, where, I can only assume, they were planning to fill the tub with water and bubbles so they could have some “me” time.

Since it was late evening when I noticed the ants, Rick and I did the only thing we could do at the time – boarded up the room with “hazardous” signs and set off a bug bomb. We had to sleep on the pull-out couch in the TV room that night. Which, incidentally, is extremely uncomfortable. If you ever come to visit me and you want to stay at my house, that’s cool – just be warned that sleeping on the pull-out couch is like sleeping on a cardboard box full of metal rods. I mean, you’d think it would be fun to stay in the room with the big movie screen – lying in bed watching movies all night – but trust me, the plain old COUCH is more comfortable than that bed. (Now, I did steal a couple futons from mom and dad last year, and THOSE are quite comfy. I have no complaints about the futons…)

Anyway, back to the ants… in the morning, we called an exterminator, who thought they might be carpenter ants. They were getting onto the house from an overhanging tree branch, and then somehow finding their way into that window. So, a few applications of ant poison and a tree branch-trimming later, the ants seemed to be gone. But – Rick and I never being ones to have much affinity towards bugs – we placed ant baits on that windowsill as a precautionary measure. And for a long time it seemed to work just fine. Not a single ant crawling on the windowsill, and certainly no parading lines of ants on the way to the bathroom.

Fast forward to the present, when Rick happened to look behind the curtain of the Ant Kingdom Windowsill one day, and noticed more ants – little piles of DEAD ants. Okay, well, at least we had an assurance that the ant baits were doing their job. But since no one wants to see little piles of ants on their windowsill, we once again called an exterminator. This time we went for a bigger, more well-known company – the kind that has supposed “bug experts” on hand. So the bug expert took one look at the ants, and explained that they weren’t carpenter ants at all – they’re something called “acrobat” ants (with shows every Wednesday and Saturday…). What’s more, the ant baits that we thought were working so great weren’t working at all. (But what about all the dead ants??) Apparently, what’s been happening is the acrobat ants have been pushing the already-dead members of their ant community onto our windowsill. The ants have been DISCARDING their DEAD on my windowsill. (Cue crazy violin soundtrack from Psycho – eeee eeee eeee eeee…)

For some reason, I find it so much more disturbing to know that all the dead ants we’ve been finding on the windowsill were ALREADY dead before they got there. I mean, when I thought it was the ant baits, it was like, “yeah, stupid ants… can’t even tell the difference between real food and poison.” But now, these ants are like little cold, calculating, evil masterminds. If they have no problem with unceremoniously dumping their dead relatives on my windowsill, who knows what else they’re capable of? Every time they bring out another dead acquaintance, are they looking at the baits and thinking, “stupid humans… they think we can’t tell the difference between real food and poison”? What if they’re plotting some kind of bedroom takeover? What if they’re leaving all those dead ants on the windowsill as some sort of warning to us? What if I start finding little ant heads on tiny little pikes??

Yeah, that uncomfortable sofa bed is sounding better and better…