(this is annie)


The ants go marching one by one

For the past few months, our apartment has had what we thought to be a mild ant infestation. We'd see a few here, a few there — annoying, but not worth calling the Orkin man. (Plus, the Orkin man's chemicals are probably not good to have in the house anyway.) Assuming that they were coming from outdoors, we sealed the cracks in the kitchen window and went on full-blown "remove every trace of food from the countertops" duty.

We were quite pleased with ourselves when the ants seemed to disappear. That triumph lasted for one measly week, and then there were just as many as before. My roommate and I had different approaches to eliminating them. She'd squish them with a little "ha!" whereas I preferred to frantically overspray Mrs. Meyers all-purpose cleaner to end their lives. (It made our kitchen smell very nice, like geraniums.) And yet they still kept coming.

We bought traps. They were absolutely useless, and I considered the possibility that we would never be able to win, so why keep fighting? Then, the other day, an ant crawled onto my arm and something inside me flipped. I'd had enough. "We are going to annihilate these ants," I shouted with fiery passion. This would have been more electrifying if there had been an army corps there, but instead, an obese cat stared blankly at me before dancing for his food. We can't all be Patton.

So I bought some Terro ant baits. The ants see their sugary liquid as a food source, and they take the poison back to the nest. Hoping to watch the ants' greedy appetites lead them to their own destruction, I put the baits out and waited for the sadistic fun to begin.

Where the Raid traps failed, Terro kicked ass and took names. Lots of names. Within an hour, the ants were having a full-on bacchanal. Imagine a group of 19-year-old spring breakers chugging Tecate in Cancun and you'll have an idea of how eagerly and quickly these ants guzzled the poison. Hundreds of carrier ants swarmed to take in the sugary Borax cocktail. "Drink up, little ones," I thought wickedly. "There's more sweet, sweet nectar where that came from."

It's now been 24 hours, and while the ant festivities continue, there are already significantly fewer revelers. It's only a matter of time before they, too, meet their own demise. It's a little embarrassing to reveal the blood lust that the ants have stoked in my heart, but hey, at least we'll have pristine countertops again.

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