The Ants Go Marching

The Ants Go Marching… One by One… ...Hurrah? Hurrah?

Thursday 11 December 2008

We discovered a lot of things about this house after we moved in that we didn’t notice before… the jungle in the backyard, the chipping drywall, the overall ‘crookedness’ of everything… and the ants. Anyone who knows me well knows that insects make me shiver. Spiders make me run away… But all insects make me a little nauseous. (Unless butterflies and dragonflies count as insects. I like those!)

I woke up this morning and I stretched and I rolled over. And I gaped. I was so surprised I forgot to shiver! Marching in a neat and very precise line was a thick row of ants… down the windowsill… down the wall… out of sight… I quickly checked to make sure none of the little soldiers had made a detour onto our pillows or bedding… because James is ALLERGIC! So I feel a bit nauseous but I keep my cool. I consider. I have a bottle of ant and roach repellent from our first Florida apartment when ants started marching past our front door and under our neighbor’s door. (I was nice that time. I sprayed his door and his welcome mat too!) I can use it and obliterate an entire army with one long spray. But I know a bit about how ants work… Others will follow the scent trail laid down by these. More and more and more will come. Maybe the lingering odor of pesticide will eventually deter. But they WILL come. I need to kill the queen. Kill the queen and the hill will scatter and die. The best way to do this is with poison delivered directly to the top of the hill…. But where? The second best way is to give these little soldiers something they’ll take back to the fort… Splenda. Sounds strange, huh? They are attracted because it is sweet and they take it back to the queen… But if they feed her enough of it, she will starve because Splenda (while sweet) has no nutritional value. It’s a gamble, I decide… But I can always spray them later after they take some back to the queen. It was interesting to watch what happened after I dropped the open Splenda packet. The army marched on gathering it up and taking it away. The steady stream continued… and then slowed… and then trickled to a stop… Lovely, I thought. Maybe Splenda in large quantities kills instantly? Maybe they think they’ve done enough work for one day. Who knows? But they are gone and that’s what matters. I resolve to pour lemon juice on the window sill since I’ve heard that is the foolproof way to repel ants. It worked in my dorm.

After that excitement, I’m sure the rest of my day will seem “ant”i-climactic. Haha. James went on pilgrimage to the attic and I wonder to myself if he’s set up a shrine to the coax-hydra up there…? But no. We need telephone lines. Desperately. To talk on the telephone? No. We haven’t used a landline in years! But phone lines bring internet so it’s worth a little struggle. I watch James ascend the ladder into the attic. As his feet perch precariously by his toes to the edge of the top of the ladder I feel a momentary flash of the fear my mom must have felt all those years… watching my dad climb onto our roof. It reached a point where she would make sure one of his friends was going to be there to help and then she would leave for the day. I understand that now. I feel a sense of community with worried wives everywhere.

I came to a realization today. I’ve always noticed this about myself. But I’ve never put the concept into a coherent thought before, much less into words... - - I don’t like physical labor. I don’t like to sweat. I don’t like to struggle. I don’t like to ‘feel the burn.’ It came to me today in a flash. I’m an artist-scholar – not a labourer. I’m a thinker and a dreamer – not a worker. This isn’t to say that I’ll ever shy away from work that has to be done. But I gain no pleasure in it… Save a grim satisfaction that I’m proving wrong every male chauvinist who works at Lowe’s. I know how to work. I know lots of things. James asked me to bring him a spade bit today and said “it’s the one with the little teeth.” I brought it and said, “it doesn’t have teeth, but it IS a spade bit.” I’m not my father’s daughter for nothing. Some people run for the joy of it. Some people feel the need to be on the move constantly. I’ll be angry with you if you take away from this that Lea is lazy… That’s not it. But I live more inside my mind than I’ll ever live in the physical world.

So the phone lines. It went surprisingly well. Using a motley assortment of tools, I made a hole in the wall and fished out the line as James dropped it down from the attic. The first one went smoothly. The second one not so smoothly. But we’re a great team and we got it done. Most of the rest of the day I spent on hold with ATT trying to find out why I don’t have internet yet. Turns out we’re on the schedule for DECEMBER 15TH!!!! What??? I tell the lady… “I’m going crazy here! It’s been FIVE DAYS already!” She tries to expedite the service but there’s nothing she can do. I feel like I’ve suddenly been transported back in time to the DARK AGES! I feel trapped! Like I can record my thoughts, but can’t share them. Like a vast ocean separates me from the friends I know and love. Like my business will crumble and burn from lack of email and uploading capabilities. It’s too much for me!!! The agony! But… If she can’t, she can’t. And I can be reasonable. I only wish they had informed us to start with that it was going to take so long. Then I wouldn’t have had my hopes up with every stinking ATT truck that drove down the street. And they frequent our street so often, scarily enough. So we have brand new Cat 5e lines and no internet to run through them. Sadly, I learned today that it really won’t enhance our DSL that much… though if we make a hardwired network it will be lightning fast. Meh. Who knows?

We went to South Fork High School’s Winter Concert to hear Chelsea Keathley and Mike Craig. The concert was wonderful. So glad Dawn invited us. I’m amazed by all the talented musicians and singers. The conductor was also awesome!! It was nice to have a bit of time to escape from the ‘real world’ of renovating into the ‘fun world’ of Christmas spirit! I still hope to put up a Christmas tree… but is it too much trouble?

So I was getting sleepy before I wrote this… And thinking I might just go to bed. But when I went into the master bathroom, I saw… ants! AGGHHH!!! I traced them back to the same windowsill. I gingerly lifted the blind a few inches. Holy smokes! I’ve never seen so many ants!! This time I brought out the pesticide. Move over, home remedies. Major dose of chemicals to the rescue. I got a little trigger happy and James had to stop me. Now we’re waiting for the bedroom to air out so we won’t be asphyxiated in our sleep. The rickety rickety rickety sound of the bedroom ceiling fan assures me that the chemicals will be evenly dispersed into the whole house instead of neatly contained in the three lowest inches of the blind… Oh well.

Another day, another castrophe. And that’s been the latest ‘episode’ of the Lea Mayo Home Renovation Show!