And the ants went marching through. Right through the house. Of course they did. Because we’ve had it all this year. Termites. We tented them. A critter under the downstairs tub. I ran him off. Now ants. Big, gnarly fire ants. The size of ponies.
All marching through.
As with most invasions — Martian, zombie, whatever — it started out innocent enough. A few scouts wandering around the house, looking at the curtains, making toast, using up all the toilet paper and not putting out a new roll.
The dog took to pouncing on them. Pummeling their little bodies and leaving curled up carcasses strewn about the house. Or she ate them. Just what I need — a war between the species.
More and more showed up. I flashed through the house with a paper towel, crunching them as I went. One on the wall. Two over by the sofa. A smoke break in the corner.
I tried to reason with them. Asked them politely to leave. But you can’t reason with fire ants. They’re prickly and have mandibles the size of a lobster’s claw. They use some pretty foul language, and if they get numbers on you, they’ll mess up your credit report.
They kept coming.
The final straw was when I spotted one on my daughter’s head while we sat at the dinner table. She took it well enough. The lawsuit asked for a reasonable sum of money. Emotional scarring was the claim. We offered her a bowl of ice cream and that settled it.
We figured it was the rain driving them inside. A search for higher ground. But from where? That’s the part that will make you mad. Not angry, mind you. Anger you can stifle. I mean “mad” like insane. Out of your gourd. Crawling around the house with a flashlight, poking it behind furniture and in dark corners. With so many scootin’ through, it seemed like their entry point would HAVE to be obvious. I pictured a crowded line with a bouncer at the front. Maybe a neon sign screaming, “Get down and boogie here!”
But we all know that’s not the way it works. Because life would be simple and easy then. And life isn’t simple and easy. You have to spend all day on a project, and eventually climb underneath the house.
Oh, the dreaded underworld beneath the house. Wasn’t I just there? Oh yes, searching for the critter under the tub. Those dirt crawlspaces are the 10th circle of hell. You are banished there for being a dolt, and you spend eternity trying to solve unsolvable problems.
Moaning and weeping, I dragged my body through the dust and fallen insulation while crying, “Where are you ants!?! Show yourselves! Fight like men!”
I didn’t find one. Not one!
It would come later, when the heat and the fury and the insanity had started welling up in me. Outside on my hands and knees, I crawled along the edges of the house calling, “Here ant-y, ant-y, ant-y.”
And then I spotted one of them. Just one. Carrying something. An egg. He looked in a rush. Precious cargo. Couldn’t talk. Had to go.
I followed him. I tried to be inconspicuous. I ducked behind bushes when he turned around. “Who me? No, nothing. I’m not following you. Just checking the … uh … leaves. Yeah, that’s it!”
I had to be patient. I had to ignore the temptations — like watching the barking squirrel — man, that guy is funny … NO! back to the ant. Follow the ant. He will lead us there.
It was now a mythical journey. I was some elf-like creature on a great quest. I had fully lost my mind. He went to a hole in a tree by my front porch. There were others there, too. And more behind him, following an invisible trail. It ran through my house, clear to the other side. I was watching a great migration.
And a great migration caused by me! I remembered now. I had uprooted their colony — a rather mean and nasty bunch. I came across them while digging up a dead azalea bush. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Didn’t think, “you know, these little buggers might just go looking for a new home, and they might just march straight through your house.”
Because that would be crazy, and I wasn’t crazy then. But here they were, marching through.
“Isn’t that always the hummer?” I thought as I poured ant killer on their new lair. We are always the cause of our own problems. That’s why we’re doomed — doomed to crawl the 10th circle of hell, forever trying to solve what we should have fixed in the first place.