Saturday, October 20, 2007

I've tried being calm. I've tried logical discourse. I've tried yelling. I've tried limb-breaking violence. None of those have worked. I am normally a patient and loving man*, but I've been ignored for two solid days now. The sanctity of my home has been violated for too long, so it's come to this.

I will kill them.

I will kill their brothers, sisters and cousins. I will kill their parents, children, neighbors, coworkers, and lovers. I will kill them all. I will kill their queen.

An Open Letter to the ants in my kitchen:

Dear ants,

Do you remember Friday, October 19th? You probably don't. It was probably just a day, like any other day, where pheromone X led you down path Y to food item Z. In this case, however, path Y led to my kitchen.

I thought we had a deal. The deal was that you stayed out of my house, and I stayed not killing you. Now, I understand that mistakes happen. I'm sure that the construction in our house (and by construction I'm referring to the weekly visit by a subcontractor where he hammers a single nail into a piece of wood, and then carefully removes the nail so as to leave no trace of any progress) has disturbed your normal foraging paths. Also, the beginning of this year's rainy season has undoubtedly thrown your usual methodical food gathering patterns into disarray.

I get this. I'm a reasonable man. However, all that being said, get the fuck out of my kitchen.

Lord knows I'm not the best communicator. I'm sure Hank has dozens of stories about times when I was unclear about my feelings or what I needed done to my penis, but I think I made my point clear on Friday morning when I killed every single one of you in sight. I sprayed down hundreds of you with counter soap and then squished any stragglers with my thumb. Was that not effective communication? Do we need to do some mirroring exercises?

Echo this back to me: I will kill you all.

If there was some pheromone I could spray on the ground with my butt to convince you to leave, I would do that for you. Like I said, I'm a reasonable man. However, although my butt does emit a variety of unpleasant odors, none of them have convinced you to vacate my kitchen, so I've moved to Plan B. That's the plan where I kill you all.

Today I stocked up on Raid Ant Spray. I used that to spray the perimeter of my house. If you're outside of my house, you should probably stay here. If you're already inside, then please come and enjoy some death.

I also bought ant traps. They are filled with death and are quite delicious. I encourage you to share some of the deathiness with the queen. Please.

I'm also fully loaded up on 409. That's the stuff I keep squirting that kills you. Remember dying today? That was the 409! It's the last line of defense. It's also quick and kind of fun.

So, pick your poison, ants. I've got three ways to kill you, not including my blood-thirsty thumb or my "pheromone" filled ass.

Death to the queen,
Mike

* Literary license

15 comments:

Neel Mehta said...

Death to the queen

Or: God save the homeowner.

Mike said...

God must be on the side of the ants.

Anonymous said...

Mike, it's going to be easier to sacrifice a beloved housepet, or maybe a spare child if you have one, to the ants. They are merciless!

Mike said...

Chess, that was my first inclination too, but upon further reflection, I decided that you can't give ants a single inch, or housepet, or child. Once you start down that path, it's a slippery slope.

DarkWing said...

when I was little we lived in this house forever called the Ant House. They would always get in our cereal. Seriously we had to put our cereal in air sealed containers and sometimes that didn't even work. I never dreaded breakfast so much. We got rid of them by moving...hope yours doesn't come to that.

DarkWing said...

come to think of it that was the first house I ever got to see a dead mouse in. (fun times)...anyway

Mike said...

Newnorth, I will not move. I will not lose this battle. I will be victorious.

Death to ants.

yajeev said...

I can't help but hear the Pink Panther theme song as I think about your battle against the home invaders:

Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant dead ant....

(sorry--i couldn't help myself)

Mike said...

Yajeev, blog penalty! No fair getting theme songs stuck in my head!

Will said...

Reminds me of this guy: Leiningen.

Mike said...

Oh, good god, Will. That's terrible.

Stacey said...

Anger management be damned!

I've warned the spiders around my house more than a million times that they can stay outside and live ot they can come inside to die...

Enjoy the killing spree...

Mike said...

Stacey, you'd think these woodland creatures would learn their lesson! At least I can kill ants with my thumb though. I could probably kill spiders that way too, but that's too ooky for me.

Ms.PhD said...

Okay, here's what you do. Stop with the Raid, it doesn't work. At all.

Call a company that will come and have them inject the magic dust (I'm not kidding, it's some kind of Borax thing) down through the cracks in your floors, inside the electrical sockets (no kidding) and all around the perimeter of your house.

It's magical. It works.

While you're waiting for them to come, use Windex to disrupt the ant trails, the ammonia in it works wonders. Some is good, but Windex is better.

That should do it. It works for us.

After they come and 'dust' the place, don't use Raid again, since it will inactivate the dust.

We have them come do new dust about once every couple of years. Magical, I tell you.

Or to be more sciencey, better living through chemistry.

the end. good luck. ants suck.

Mike said...

Ms. PhD, so far you're right on two counts. The Windex works great (no better than the 409 I was using, but it doesn't make my wife nauseated). Also, ants do suck.

I haven't seen any ants in 48 hours though, so my plan may work yet. More on that in the future....