The Ants Are My Friends . . .

One of the great things about winter is that most of the creepy-crawlies are down for the count. At least, that's what I thought until a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, insects and spiders don't all hop a plane to Cali for the winter, as I'd naiively assumed they did. Instead, the little bastards move indoors.

Oh hell no.

It was a typical Thursday morning about three weeks ago. Maybe that was part of the problem.
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

It was about twenty after eight. The coffee was hot, the fax machine was minding its own business and the copy machine hadn't done anything evil in at least two days. Everything seemed normal.

And then they came.

The first indication I had that something might be terribly, terribly wrong was a little tickling feeling on the top of my right hand. Figuring it was probably just the end of a piece my of hair, I shook it off without looking at it. A moment or so later, the tickling was back. This time, I took a look.

Something on the back of my hand was moving.

I shook my hand, stood up and (as it seemed the appropriate thing to do) promptly began freaking the hell out. Closer inspection of my desktop revealed that it, my keyboard, my keyboard tray, my mouse and mouse pad were all covered with little black ants.

Snakes and lizards I can handle, but when confronted with an unexpected arthropod, I completely go to pieces. I am a great big sissy. It's not like I'm an expert on tiny critters. For all I knew, these creatures were Terrible Stinging Fire Ants of Doom and Mayhem from the furthest reaches of Uranus.

I wasn't taking any chances.

I did what any logical person would do. I backed away from my desk and called my husband.

"Well that was fast." he said cheerfully, having just dropped me off about twenty minutes earlier.

"Uhm, honey." I said "I have a problem . . . "

"Yes?"

"A--aaaaaants!"

"Huh?"

I described the situation in a calm and scientific manner (well, at least I wasn't screaming).

"Well. Um." he said "I'm already at work . . . What do you want me to do?" He didn't say this at all unkindly. I think if I'd begged him to come kill my ants for me he might have done it, but I knew he had work to do as well, so all I said was,

"Offer suggestions? Talk me down?"

After I hung up, I hovered over my desk, killing ants with a Kleenex for about half a minute before I realized that this wasn't the best way to spend the remainder of my workday. I called my office manager and--again--described the problem in the calmest, most scientific manner. I will not relate the entire conversation, but I will say that the phrase "in a visceral, phobic way" was uttered by me in describing my reaction to the problem. I asked her if she had any Raid she could bring in.

She suggested I keep the ants at bay with Windex, call the building manager and get maintenance down there pronto. She was on her way.

I got out the Windex and got all father-from-My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding on those ants. I hovered over my workstation like an enormous hovering Windex-clutching thing, picking off any speck that appeared to be moving. All told, I killed about ten of them. I left them there as evidence, hoping the maintenance people would be able to tell from the carnage where the ants were coming from.

The maintenance guy came to my rescue about an hour later. He prowled the office taking shots at the ants which were--unbeknownst to me until that moment-all over the floor as well. Additionally, the line they made from the outside wall of our conference room right through the rest of the office ran directly under the chair on which I'd been sitting, reading an ancient issue of Time and hiding from The Ants.

Bugger.

By that time, one of my co-workers had arrived. She stayed safely out in the hallway (the office being now full not only of dead ants but also of chemicals). The office manager did venture in, but wasn't keen on sticking around either. She'd been sick for about three weeks with a nasty sinus infection. The last thing she needed to do was spent the day inhaling toxic chemicals.

We did our best, but there is only so much business you can conduct in the hallway outside your office. The ants won, but at great cost to their numbers.

With the winter having settled in for the long haul, we've had no more invasions. We are now able to safely occupy our office space, secure in the knowledge that a cloud of invisible fumes is protecting us from the tiny creatures who might otherwise be basking in the warmth of the copy machine until May.