Personal Note: The slow apocalypse?

[nebroadwe]

I arrived home yesterday evening to discover my kitchen swarming with a sub-Biblical plague of ants. I drowned some (ants in the sink!) and Lysoled others (ants on the countertops and running along the baseboards!) and squished the rest (ants on the cabinet doors! ants under the kitchen mat! ants in the rice cooker!). Skin crawling (literally: ants on MEEEE!), I bolted a quick dinner and then headed out to the hardware store, where I bought some Mom-recommended ant bait (my parents have ant problems every summer). Home again, I Lysoled and squished some more ants before setting out the baits. Then I cleaned everything the ants had touched, walked past, or even glanced at, because I'm a little "Graah! Sterilize!" like that whenever I have a pest infestation. I also put all the food in my cupboards that wasn't in sealed containers into sealed containers.

I got up this morning and squished five more ants (two in the rice cooker, which I subsequently washed, sealed into plastic bags, and boxed. I haven't been eating much rice lately anyway.). I don't know what I did to earn the wrath of the Lord of the Ants, but I'm hoping that the great slaughter I've perpetrated upon his myrmidons will give him pause. Or perchance I shall hereafter think it meet to put an ant-ic disposition on. If you can't beat 'em ...

Comments

[lyrangalia]

The Antpocalypse? The Slowpocalypse?

I feel you! I just got rid of a bug infestation that got out of hand when a potato began rotting in the pantry by bleaching the pantry.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Yuck. Bugs are one thing, but rot REALLY makes me pull out the cleaners. Also mold. I have never yet been able to adopt the cavalier attitude of one of my doctor friends, who responds to moldy cheese and such by cutting off the moldy parts and eating the nonmoldy ones. He's still alive, but I just ... I can't ... NO. ;-)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I have sugar ants as well, and acquired them whilst staying with Mom two weeks ago when she was needy/illish.

Now I have tornado watches.

*headdesk*

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Maybe the tornadoes will suck up all the ants? The least these natural disasters can do is cancel each other out. (No, no, not really wishing you a tornado -- wishing they will stay far, far away from you, and the ants with them.)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Tornadoes could suck up the ants! but they didn't, alas.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

They're in league! Once the tornadoes have come through, the ants will rule what remains! We must band together to foil their nefarious plot!

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!


*GOES TO GET ANT POISON*

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Now, see, instead of Maaya-Sue in the FMA movie, they should have had a rogue weather alchemist and armies of semi-sentient ants. A sort of Tornado meets The Naked Jungle thing ...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we'd written it....

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

The rogue weather alchemist should be a woman. I fancy a female head villain -- probably she started out just trying to improve the local climate of her area and one thing led to another. I wonder where Tornado Alley is in Amestris. (Also, are ants matriarchal? Hmm.)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

(Ants are matriarchal.)

I think the rogue weather alchemist should be an albino, possibly with pink streaks in her long, wavy hair that hangs to her butt. Sort of like a punkish version of Olivia.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't she want short hair, because of all the wind involved in making really dramatic weather? Spiky pink-tipped hair, perhaps? (The animators would never forgive us for the long hair, anyway.) Then people seeing her only in silhouette could mistake her for a man and Ed can have one of those "You're a GIRL?!?" lines that always gets him creamed by the girl in question. (I suspect she calls down a lightning strike between them and answers, "I'm an ALCHEMIST.")

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

How about a dramatic rattail, just so she can have some hair whipping around? Because a rattail is good for either sex. Or maybe long bangs and short hair in the back?

I do like the androgynous look, definitely.

Of course, if she wears a dramatically billowy coat, that also resolves the hair thing....

[ishte.livejournal.com]

Ugh... I hate ants. I fought them for 4 years in my kitchen in Fairborn before I abandoned my house (for a variety of additional reasons, but the ants were on the list) I could keep that kitchen spotless and they would still be freaking EVERYWHERE.

Did your mom recommend Terro? If what she recommended was different and doesn't work, I strongly recommend Terro. It works really well... My problem was there were more ants than there was Terro in the world... I also believe that they eventually became resistant to it. You cannot believe the number of little piss ants (sugar ants) involved. They also got into EVERYTHING. Even sealed containers of stuff would be full of them trying to figure out how to get back out with their bounty.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

My mom's actually had good luck with the Raid baits, so that's what I'm starting with. This morning brought a reassuring absence of live ants and five ant corpses curled up along the kitchen baseboard. I'm hoping for the best, but will definitely keep your suggestion in mind if I have to step it up a notch. As a last resort, since I'm in a condo and they're responsible for house-shell issues, I can argue that they should spring for extermination, which they've done for other pests making their way in from outside. One of the few advantages to incomplete home-ownership, that.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

oh ew. and you're like the 3rd person this has happened to in the last 2 weeks.makes me fear what will happen here in 2 weeks

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Usually this stuff hits you guys first before it gets to me, so maybe the ant-storm has already passed you by. [crosses fingers]

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that would be nice. this time last year I left and came back to Mice-opolis

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Nngh. I have never gotten over sticking my hand into a box and feeling a nest of dead baby mice. Ew.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

ick. yeah i put out a glue trap in my BEDROOM and in 5 minutes there were 3 babies in it. shudders

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I hope they weren't squeaking piteously.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

luckily for all around they smothered before I even found them.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Phew.