ANTS

I hate 'em.

For serious.

I'd post a picture or something for a visual impact, but I don't want to google "ants." I'd vomit.

We are in a ground floor apartment by the pool so apparently we're prime housing for the nasty little buggers. Luckily it's only the tiny sugar ants. They don't bite or strike the fear chord like big fatty or fire ants do. They're still driving me bonkers. I had seen a few here and there a few weeks ago and then one day I went to do the laundry and they had COMPLETELY infested the dirty clothes pile. Laundry, who knew? So I shook out all the clothes and vacuumed all the ones I saw into my dust buster, after following the trail of course. I sprayed any stragglers with Fantastik and sprayed the wall where they were coming in as well.

I saw another trail of them coming out of our coat closet. No exterior walls, but it backs up to the bathroom so we assumed they were coming in for the water. I went to the apartment office and told them and they brought me some spray for inside. We sprayed those areas and around the living room and thought. Hoorah!

No hoorah. I kept finding them in the bathroom and then by the fireplace. Bleh.. I sprinkled baby powder in several locations because they don't like the smell. But it doesn't kill them so they just scatter and find a new entrance. The exterminator guy comes like, every second Tuesday or Thursday or something ridiculous like that so they haven't sprayed outside.

Tuesday is taco night and I was gearing up to make some tortillas. I opened the baking cabinet to grab the flour, baking powder and shortening and low and behold: ANTS IN MY FRIGGIN' CABINET!!! They wanted mah sugah. So I cleaned out the cabinet and put my marshmallows and brown sugar in a ziploc baggie. I was putting things back into the cabinet when I kept finding the bastards on the counter around the honey. Ya, in the cap. That went in the trash...

They were in the stove too. I have to thoroughly clean the stove every time I use it. How fun is that? YAY? No Yay. I mean, don't get me wrong, having a clean house isn't a bad thing! But I don't have a messy house! They are going looking for things. I don't leave my sugar out all over the place, they went into the cabinet to the closed bag. Jerks.

Steven thought I was crazy for freaking out about it until last night. I went to change into my pajamas when I noticed a mound of moving black on my panties in the dirty clothes. Seriously? I don't know whether to be flattered or disgusted that the ants were attracted to my dirty underwear. (I don't have disgusting dirty underwear, just normal every day underwear)

It was so gross.... And it was late so I couldn't vacuum them up! We sprayed them with Fantastik, Steven squished them and I followed the trail and dumped some vinegar into the entrance... I hate ants.

I was also randomly finding them on the couch. (On an interior wall) So this morning I moved the couch to see where they were coming from behind the couch. The interior wall corners with an exterior wall so they were coming in at the corner. This time they had a lookout, though. A spider. (These ants are finding my weaknesses and using them against me) I squealed repeatedly as the spider began to run around hibbety jibbety when I sprayed him with Fantastik. I had to make my squeals of fear sound like fun so that I wouldn't scare Peyton who was staring at me with that, "Mama? You've got issues" look. Spider finally stopped running so I sprayed the line of ants and then went for the baby powder. Spider was playing possum! He started running like a spider with Fantastik on his eyes so I soaked him in it. And he died. But to be sure I squished him with a mound of Kleenex.

For now I've found a few stragglers here and there. It usually takes a day for them to form a line again which leads me to the following question:

Why are ants so stupid? I mean, if I sent out some scout ants to find food and/or water and they didn't return I wouldn't think, "Hey! ANTdrew didn't come back! Wait... Neither did SamANTtha, BrANTdon, ANTthony or Fred. They must have found something great and want us to come too!" I would think, "Uh, ya. They died. We shouldn't go back in there. Ever."

Exterminator comes Thursday. It better work, or I'm raising hell. I don't want ants. I pay $865 a month for an apartment for me, Steven, Peyton and Maddie. If they wanna live here, I better see some compensation for sharing my quarters.