The Diary of Queen Mothy |
Call me . . . "Aunt" Massacre written @ 10:08 PM on June 08, 2005 God Almighty. I don't even know where to begin for this entry! Carpenter ants, perhaps. Oh yes. Last week I found a carpenter ant on the carpet in my bedroom, and while I try to be all Zen Buddhist and not kill any living creature, I figured I did it a service by smashing it and not leaving it to a much darker fate with my cats about. Two days later, I found another carpenter ant outside the bathroom, and promptly rendered it the same fate. Over the weekend, I found one more strolling along the living room carpet. I was growing painfully aware of how these things operate like termites strapped to magnets; periodicaly my dad would shudder when he remembered how he accidentally stuck his arm in a nest while hammering something in the garage when we lived in Pittsburgh. I'm told the ensuing war wasn't pretty, a la Casey's ant war when he was still at Lee University. Today I found the goddamned nest. It was outside in one of the portico columns, and the only reason why I know this is because I stumbled upon a late Memorial Day picnic 20 females (the ones with the wings) and 5 worker ants (lucky guys) were having in the evening sunset. Another pair of worker ants brought the beer and the finger food of other ant species. The party on my porch stopped me dead in my tracks because there were so goddamned many of them (think of the ants in Dali's melting clocks painting). And then when I stopped, I noticed something else: there was the scratchy, clicking, pattering, batty rat-tat-tattering up the column and all the way to the portico ceiling and even in the house gutters. In short, thousands upon thousands of ants were hidden inside my house's portico. The phrase "major infestation" doesn't even cut it. These guys cut an elaborate civilization over a matter of a couple weeks. Rome, eat your fucking heart out. I located two more colony entraceways and found similar block parties and militant ant posses all over the outside walls. My mom heard those words of absolute dread, filled the same feeling Custard had when he knew he was about to be had: "Mom. I think you better come look at this." After a brief inspection, she quietly and resolutely went into the garage and pulled out a 409-esque bottle filled with pesticide and dropped it in my hands. I could feel my own Zen Buddhist principles come under fire. "But this is murder!" I objected. "This is like genocide." "Kill them, you stupid tree-hugging hippie," she commanded, a general though she is. So she left me to my own devices in the front yard. I looked at the belated Memorial Day parties sadly and opened fire with more intensity than the Boston Massacre. This was a bad idea because the poison-doused ants retreated back into the portico column-- which excited the entire colony and caused a massive exodus of hundreds of ants. Suddenly it was D-Day in the front yard. The winged ants took to flight and began coming after me and I shot them the bloody hell down. Worker ants retreated everywhere, across the porch, the stoned-in flower bed, the sidewalk, the yard! The scratching and clicking from within the walls reached a crescendo! They were pissed. Clouds of them fled the gutters and the ceiling. I saturated the columns until pools of the pesticide were on the porch. These ants went into convulsions and seizures before dying a terrible burning death. Hell, I think I killed the queen, which makes it regicide, I believe. Like wounded World War I soldiers, the drenched ones fought through their poison-induced convulsions and tried to reach the grass. There were casualties everywhere. The portico was a mass grave. Although the queen was dead, I knew they would crown a new leader and the whole civilization would go on. Good God, I emptied this entire bottle of pesticide in a matter of minutes, and the entire front was crawling with these freakin' huge ants. I went back inside and said to my mother calmly, "We need to hire mercenaries." She began calling exterminators. I don't think they believed how bad it really was because she kept repeating, "Yes, you can hear them through the walls!" In the end, she slammed the phone down and said, "Screw it. I'm going to Home Depot tomorrow and buying more stuff." Somehow I doubt over-the-counter "stuff" is going to mow down the awesome power of Darwin. These things aren't your common ants. In the meantime, we've barred all the doors and windows and have been monitoring the ventilation-- 24-hour suveillance is a no-brainer, and the cats are on a red level high alert. I went to the bank to make a deposit, and when I returned, I noticed there were an unusually high number of birds in the front yard. The scavenging pick-pocketers of the battlefield were about, and they were feasting.
A Bit of History ~ And Onward! L'Amour Toujours! - August 08, 2005 |
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