Ants!

The weather was so warm last weekend, we were caught off guard by it. The condo got pretty hot pretty quickly and the little head was panting quite heavily. We decided to open the bedroom window and balcony door. They had been open the majority of the day on Saturday. It wasn’t until Sunday though that we discovered we had some uninvited guests.

“Liz!” S called to me from the couch.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“We have ants!” I went over to where she was sitting and sure enough there was a bunch of them making themselves comfortable on our carpet. “Follow their trail,” S said. I crawled along and saw that they were coming in from the balcony door.

S and I quickly began vacumming and spraying Raid wherever we saw them. That was the end of that.

Until Tuesday, when I looked at my cell after working out and saw a message from S. “The ants are back. Can you pick up some ant traps?” I have never bought ant traps before and thus had no idea where to buy them. I asked S where one purchases them and she wasn’t sure either. I said I’d ask my dad to get me some and I’d pick them up the next day.

I thought that settled it. I was wrong.

I got home and found S crouched by the window in the bedroom, looking for ants and killing them one by one between her forefinger and thumb. “Fuckers!” she’d say aggressively after each kill. I asked how things were going and she said, “I’ve already vacuumed, but they’re still coming in,” she said. I asked if she wanted me to go to Canadian Tire. “No, that’s ok, I’ve sprayed, it should be alright now.”

I thought that settled it. I was wrong.

While having dinner, S kept getting distracted by visions of ants out of the corner of her eye. I’d be in the middle of saying something and she’d burst out with, “look there’s another one! And another one! There’s three…five!” I figured S’s OCD over the ants would not let her have a good night’s sleep so I made my way to my computer and brought up the Canadian Tire web site. I searched and found that they sell ant traps. I then looked up their store hours. All of the stores close to us closed at 9. It was 8:40.

By that point, S’s fingers were getting bruised from the pressure she was putting on them while killing the ants. “Do you want to go to Canadian Tire? We can probably make it,” I said. We hurriedly got ready and made our way to the nearest store. While in the elevator down to our parking garage, I asked S what brand I should get. “Get the best one!” S replied.

“I don’t know which is the best one,” I said.

“Then get them all!” S eagerly replied. S meant business, she wanted to carry out an ant genocide.

We got there at about 8:50 and I jumped out of the truck as we approached the door. I practically jogged up the escalator hoping to make it before they closed the store.

I found the ant trap aisle but didn’t see much of a selection. “Attention customers,” a female voice came over the PA system. “The time is now 8:55, the store will be closing in five minutes…” I quickly gathered up as many ant trap boxes as I could and headed to the checkout. $27 later, I was on my way towards the exit.

We got home and set the traps throught the condo. We let the little head sniff one, just to see if she would try to lick it. Thankfully, she didn’t (the stuff is toxic.)

I thought that settled it. I was wrong.

After having distributed the traps, S insisted on sitting in the black armchair in the corner of the living room and watch the movement of the ants. “I think they’re coming from over here!” she said. I asked her if she was going to have her tea. “In a minute,” she replied. She was focused.

It’s been a few days and S’s fascination with the little buggers has faded a bit. As have the bruises on her fingers.