Ant Popping

Spring is trying to come even though it keeps snowing. I can't tell by the ground or trees, but I can surely tell by the ants. You know, the big honking black carpenter ants that make a loud pop when you step on them. You can't really call the process squishing them. They don't squish. It's more like pimple popping which requires a certain amount of determined force.

It's not just one or two carpenter ants I'm seeing. That was two years ago. Now it's several.

These two ants on the counter at the sink were some of a handful I popped that night. They are showing up everywhere: on the counter, on my computer desk (I find them crawling up my arm and in my hair), on cereal boxes and IN cereal--GACK--and on the floors throughout the house and on bathroom walls.

I'd like to say, "Oh, they're coming in from this crack or the ground under the house," but I can't. I know better. They are IN the walls. I live in one of those kid science projects with ant sandwiched between clear panels so you can watch ants at work and play, only without transparent walls. Thank God. (Literally I have.)

Unfortunately, I can also tell the ant living quarters have expanded from last year, for now they are prevalent in more places, finding food they didn't before. They never before got into our stored food. They scared both EJ and I the first time I poured him Kashi Heart to Heart cereal and they skittled around his bowl.

I almost missed the creepy crawly in my Raisin Bran before eating it. I really prefer not to take after my mom in this area. (Years ago, without turning on the light, she ate Lifesaver peppermints to calm an upset stomach in the middle of the night. She was mortified when she found ants covering them the next morning. At least the peppermint ants soothed her stomach a little while.)

We don't eat super sweet cereal--Heart to Heart is about the sweetest we get--but we now put all cereal except Cheerios in Ziplock sandwich bags. So far, it has kept the ants out. I'm now praying God keeps ants out of my sugar container.

Jim bought ant cups for indoors and ant killer bombs he plans to set off under the trailer. How much good can they do, though? Smoke doesn't penetrate walls and forget osmosis. We really have to leave this trailer within the next few years before there is nothing left. I would love to leave my profession as an Ant Popper.

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