Kevin Mills, Ant Hunter.
I have a confession to make. I really don’t like ants. I don’t know if it would be wrong to go so far as to say I hated them, but if it would be – I’d go as close to the line as possible. (Loathing, perhaps? I’m a writer… I should know these things…. where’s my Thesaurus…?)
It might have started when I was a little kid, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, when I was watching my older brother play baseball one day. He looked really odd in his striped pants and vest, but I was bored, so I stood by the fence and watched. Next thing I know, I have a tickling sensation running up and down my leg (TICKLING, not TINKling…). Then the tickling sensation immediately transforms into a MY LEG IS ON FIRE!!! sensation. I look down and see a hundred or so very large, very red ants making a concerted effort to turn my leg into Spam.
A hop, skip and a jump later (also known as the Insane, Screaming Mad Dash of Hell), and I’m safe in Mommy’s arms, soaking my leg in Bactine…
That might have been where it all began. But those aren’t the ants I’m contending with right now, at home in Edmond, OK. Oh no… the ants that are making themselves home here are the teeny, tiny sugar ants, that have a connection network better than anything Melaleuca ever came up with.
I was first exposed to THOSE ants when Kim and I went over to Indonesia for a year. Seriously, what we call an “ant problem” over here in America is nothing compared to the sheer force of the insect world over there. Case in point: over in Indo there are hundreds of small lizards called “chee-checks” (known as the gecko over here, I believe). They’re everywhere, indoors and out. You’re disgusted by them at first (especially when they decided to sleep in your toaster, with less than spectacular results), but for the most part you get used to them and ignore ‘em.
Well, one day as we’re leaving for the school, I notice a dead chee-check lying on the porch. Had a heart attack, touched the light bulb, colon cancer – who knows what had happened, but he was dead now. I notice a few ants crawling around him, and start humming the Circle of Life song we’ve all be infected with. So I shrug my shoulders and go on about my life, right? That was at 8 in the morning.
When we return from school at 3:00pm that afternoon, I go over to check on the guy and see how he is. Fact is, he isn’t. There’s nothing left of him but a SKELETON. That was the first time I ever really understood what the word “skeletonize” fully meant. It was awesome. And sobering… I mean, I had to SLEEP later that night… that’s as close to death as you can get without crossing over… And ants? Well, come on, how big do you think their brains are, anyway? Do you really think they can tell the difference (or even CARE) if what they’re gnawin’ on is dead or alive? Please…
Which brings me to where I’m at now in life. The winter’s over, the summer is upon us, and Kyler makes a daily mess in the kitchen. The ants, they are a comin’. At first I put my inventor’s brain to work, trying to come up with a product to slap on the ants and stick’ em up, like “ant paper” or something. The problem? I don’t think the average American wants to see dead ants after they kill ‘em.
My solution? Use one of the myriad lint rollers we have around the house and steamroll ‘em. At first I just started whacking them, which was satisfying, but eventually your first bat success rate dropped as you’d hit ‘em too hard, and some would fall off, and you’d have to hit ‘em again. (Kyler suffers from this, but his batting average is improving daily… He has inherited his father’s inner hunting skills… both of them…)
So now I use the wrist to roll the tool so that it will stick more of them the first time at bat. Bam. Next thing you know, you have 100 or so of the little bugs (buggers?) sweetly stuck to the sheet. “How’s THAT for a network, ya stinkin’ ants?!? Huh?! Oh yeah, a network of DEATH!!!!”
Insert evil laugh here.
And now? Now I’m going to go mop the floor with a bleach water solution in the hopes that I’ll make a dent in their neverending onslaught. Thankfully, I know the ending to this battle.
There are no ants in heaven.
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