The Ant Story

I've been writing blogs and dismissing them before I finish. It's pathetic that I haven't been able to string enough coherent thoughts together to get a decent blog published lately. While talking to a friend of mine a few days ago, the ant story came up. She was chuckling about her boyfriend teasing her that she doesn't kill bugs, and I laughed with her. For the most part, I'm like that too. The exceptions are spiders, centipedes that get into my living space, and now--ants. Here's why. (This is for you, T)!

Last summer must have produced ideal conditions for the big black ants around here. The soil is sandy around here and I see a fair amount of anthills around the house. Ants don't bother me. Usually. I mean, they are the Superman of the insect world. Have you ever seen them dragging things bigger than themselves across the floor? They even carry the dead back to the nest! Ants have amazing little colonies that are quite complex, if you ever care to read more about them. In short, they are wonderfully coherent survivors.

But I digress. Ants are also a nuisance when they arrive in droves into your house, which is what happened to me this past summer. It was like my hardwood floors were their superhighways. I put up with it for awhile. Then their numbers increased and I knew it was time to get the Terro. I carefully set up little feeding stations near the shoulders of their highways and waited for them to disappear. But they didn't disappear; they only diminished in numbers. That was actually okay with me, since a few weary travelers didn't bother me so much. That is until the night one crossed the line.

I'd gotten home from work late one hot summer night. I fired up the computer to read at some sites I enjoy and check out who was on Yahoo Messenger. I had just gotten my browsers, email, and Yahoo open when I felt an irritation on my hip/butt/leg area. (Think of how your mom looked when she had her hands on her hips, looking at you disappointingly when you'd done something wrong. Where her index finger was positioned is where this 'something' was). I brushed at my billowy shorts pajamas, thinking it was just a nerve or skin irritation. I felt something on me then. I was afraid it might be a spider so I reached under and tried to brush it off without looking. Now, as I was doing this, the ant began biting me.

I jumped up and brushed harder at the ant. It would not brush off of me! And its bite continued to get more ferocious with each swat downward. By this time, I was getting rather alarmed at the pain it was inflicting and its steadfast refusal to get off of me. In a panic, I ripped the loose pajama shorts off, and really got a clean shot at whisking this thing off of me. Nothing. By this time, I was shouting obscenities at the the ant who had attached itself to my skin. "Get the fuck off of me!" "What the hell?" "OUCH!" "You son-of-a-bitch!" All the while, the little bastard's grip on me tightened. I finally realized that I was going to have to pluck this ant out of my skin like you would a tick. I calmed myself and grabbed it with my thumb and forefinger, giving it an almighty yank to release the pain it was inflicting upon me.

When I got the assailant out of my skin, I threw it as hard as I could across the room! I'm not kidding, I heard it hit the wall. When I wound up to launch him, I screamed again, "Get the fuck off of me!" That tough insect was still squirming when I went to look at him. I vengefully whacked him about ten times with a shoe. Having released its tiny teeth from my flesh, my senses began to come back. I realized I was standing in the middle of my spare bedroom in the middle of the night with the windows and shades thrown open, naked from the waist down! Whoops! I quickly put the shorts back on and listened for any hysterical laughter that might be coming from the night. Nothing. I did wonder if my neighbor, who is my landlady and friend, was out with her dog. It was pretty late though, and I thought the odds of her being out there were pretty slim. I figured my little tirade was probably going to go into the books as one only me and the ant would know about.

I was wrong.

I was telling my neighbor the story of my ant escapade the next day when she got a funny look on her face. "Ohhhhhhhh," she said. She explained that she had been out back with Taffy when she heard these God-awful screams coming from the bedroom. She further went on to say that she got very quiet and told the dog she thought they better go in their own house then. Apparently they snuck back into their abode while my trauma was playing out. She said she'd heard the "Get the fuck off of me!" and wasn't sure if I had a guy over or what. Wait. She heard me yelling in distress, wasn't sure if there was a man in the house, and chose to slink off to her own safety zone? Very not cool.

So I know now that I should not call on the neighbor if the going gets tough. I'm thankful that it was only an assault by a .000002 ounce ant, and not a 225 lb man I was fighting off that night. That little bugger did leave a red welt though. If I had called the cops, I would have had plenty of evidence to prove what had occurred at the scene of the crime... A dent in the wall where I had successfully deterred my assailant, skin particles in the deceased's mouth, the mark it left on me....

Pity the ant that decides to use my house for his foibles this Spring. In retrospect, I think it may have been worth the pain and suffering I endured for the laughfest the neighbor and I had when we pieced the whole story together. Still, I'm stocking up on ant poison. It's only funny once.