Rachel vs. the Ants…

There are plenty of things from my childhood that I don’t recall, either because I have repressed them or they have just faded into the dark corners of my mind, but I do have a very distinct memory of what I like to call the “ant invasion” when my family lived in Connecticut.

We were gone for the day, and returned to find our dog Toby out of his kennel (either because he chewed his way out or because we just left him out, I can’t remember) and he had left a puddle on the floor. This was not that unusual because he was still a puppy, but what was new was the swarm of big, juicy carpenter ants that were “feasting” on the mess.

It was disgusting, and I immediately took my junior high self up to my room, yelling obnoxiously the entire way, and left my parents to deal with it. (Sorry Mom and Dad)

The thing is, that memory has stuck with me so strongly that I still hate ants. HATE THEM. So when we returned from our vacation to find a family of ants had taken up residence in our kitchen, I was not happy. In fact, I was horrified. But as an adult, you can’t just run off and hide, hoping that someone else will deal with them. You have to step up and start stepping ON them. Ben even sprayed, and they just keep showing up, freezing at first (because they think I don’t see them?!?) and then dashing off furiously when they see the giant wad of paper towels ascending on them.

Tonight was the kicker. I opened the pantry door and saw one…smashed it. Then another…smashed it. Then, I realized that our kid’s “candy box”, the one filled with the leftover parade candy, was crawling with them. I can’t even tell you how repulsed I was…but I grabbed it, threw it onto the counter, whipped out a trash bag, and dumped the whole bin inside. Into the outside trash it went, and back into the pantry I went, filling up another trash bag with anything that wasn’t sealed tight as a drum. It looks like a tornado swept through the cupboard, with everything thrown into a heap.

After I finished, I decided that I needed to reward myself for not turning into a screaming junior higher again and waking up the kids, but then I realized…

I had thrown out all of our candy. Darn it.

So, I settled for pretzels with big gobs of Philadelphia Indulgence white chocolate cream cheese spread instead. It was okay, until I just popped over to the cupboard to see if any more ants were in there. THERE WERE MORE!

Smash. Smash. Curse. Smash. Yell. Dump everything into a plastic tub. Upgrade treat to an ice cream bar.

This is war, folks. I’m just not sure who is winning yet…