As one of the people I called yesterday for playdates was available for this morning, I was able to get Megan up and out of the house early so I could do some work.
It's raining, so we both wore our hooded jackets. About midway up the hill to Leslie's house, Megan screamed.
"ANTS!"
"What?" I asked.
"ANTS! THEY'RE CRAWLING ALL OVER ME! GET THEM OFF!"
I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, there were a couple of ants on her pant legs.
"Brush them off."
I pulled over so she could do that. She got off her booster seat, revealing about five ants crawling over it.
"We wouldn't have this problem if you would pick up all the junk food you eat in the car."
That's right - put the blame on the kid for the fact that the car is a mess, with crumbs and fast food wrappers and the like. "But I did pick up," she said. I looked behind me. She was right. The car was clean (for us). Yeah, it could use a thorough vacuuming at the car wash -- but I tend not to go there during the rainy season.
We got the ants off her and proceeded to our destination. Megan blubbered the entire way about how she hated ants. I started to itch. I think we were both imagining more creepy crawlies all over us.
We got to Leslie's house and Megan announced she was not going to wear her jacket. "The ants were in the fur on my hood," she said. And then I realized: the car was not the problem. We do have to fight a constant battle with the little suckers in our house; every time the weather changes, I can be sure to find the beginnings of a trail in the kitchen or bathroom, no matter how diligently I clean. And once I get rid of them in one spot, they turn up the next time it gets hot and dry or cold and wet in another spot.
And the weather has been changing a lot over the last few weeks -- cold and blustery winds in early December, followed by dry heat, followed by rain, followed by more cold and now more rain. Over the last couple of weeks, I have fought them off in the kitchen, both bathrooms, the living room, the hallway... I wondered if they hadn't found their way into the closet this time.
As soon as Leslie answered the door, Megan blurted out, "I have ANTS!"
Great, I thought. Let's let everyone know about this.
"Why aren't you wearing your jacket?" asked Grace, Leslie's mother.
"There were ANTS crawling all over me!" Megan told her.
"I think they were in our closet," I said. I tried to explain about the weather, but Grace was one step away from me.
"We have the same thing," she told me. "You have to keep everything so clean."
There's comfort in knowing someone else shares your problem, but it's still an embarrassing one to have.
The first thing I did when I got home was open the closet door, and sure enough, I saw a few ants crawling on the shelf over the rack that holds the coat hangers. I parted the coats and pushed them to the sides of the closet and discovered a thin trail of them. So I proceeded to remove the rest of the contents and brought out my trusty can of Raid.
Gareth hates it when I spray for ants. He's convinced that I'm going to poison us all. I pooh pooh that (preferring to get rid of our unwanted invaders), but do worry about the environmental effects of all that ant spray. New resolution: to look into more natural ways of pest control.
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