Insect Revenge

Remember last summer when we were having the intractable problem with the fruit flies?

Well. The insect world has apparently decided that it is time to exact revenge for the senseless slaughter of those tiny innocents. They sent a couple of battalions of carpenter ants to invade my kitchen, and I just about got eaten alive.

I walked out to the kitchen to see about getting some birthday lunch. I was considering a plate of leftover burgers and brats, when suddenly an ant as big as a hamster sauntered across the kitchen counter right in front of me. I am not normally one to take the Lord's name in vain, but I screamed, "OHMYGOD!" and knocked it on the floor and stomped on it with my faux-croc.

Then I saw two more big-ass ants advancing on me across the Pergo. "OHMYGOD!" I screeched again, and stomped them dead. As soon as I stomped, I saw more steroidal ants headed my way from the screen door, and as my gaze went up from the floor to the top of the screen door, the view started to look like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Thousands of ants swarmed around the inside of the screen.

"OMIGOD, OMIGOD, OMIGOD!!" I said, calling on the Lord to take away this plague. I slammed the back door shut, trapping the ants between the screen door and the main door, that possibly was not strong enough to hold back the pullulating legion. I raced to the front door, ran around the house to the deck, and pulled open the screen door. There were so many winged creatures that lifted off the screen that the sky turned black for a minute. I felt like Pharoah arguing with Moses about Letting His People Go.

I ducked away from the swarm and ran back around the house. Back in the kitchen, I started to notice that ants had broken away from the herd before I slammed the door. They were crawling across the walls and floor, and I attacked them with the fly swatter. Almost all of them had wings, but none were flying, and they made slow-moving targets.

Eventually I had a pile of about 20 ant carcasses; and eventually, my heart stopped pounding at NASCAR speed.

Now comes the hard part: finding out where the nest is, destroying it, and fixing the problem that attracted the ants in the first place.

I love being a homeowner.

(Top photo credit: PCS Gulf Islands. If you're reading this from the southern Gulf islands, and you have a pest problem, give them a call.)