Ants!

 

I was sitting at mei desk studying mei SAT prep book, when all of a sudden mei daed started yelling for us all to come to the kitchen. We ran in, and he was standing over a counter swarming with carpenter ants!!!! I grabbed the vacuum hose and started sucking them up into it (brandishing it wildly about ... like a ssssnake king!) while Hannah and Anaja kept lookout. Mei daed called Terminex, but the earliest opening they had available was on Thursday. Mei mamm was having none of that, so she took the phone and what do you know - after a minute or two of threatening to cancel her subscription, they managed to get to our house within seven minutes!

We did have some pots and utensils left out from yesterday's party, but the Terminex guy said that it was not so much that as it was the weather affecting them so they were wanting to get inside for shelter and moisture. He said that if we see a "burst" of ants every now and again, not to be scared, but just to suck them up with the hose again. (The picture above is how I envision it happening.)

All this craziness reminded me of a long time ago, when we were playing up in the prairie house with Nora, Anaja, Jasmin, and Cole. We had been up there for a good long time, when Cole and Hannah opened one of the drawers we kept up there.... and the entire drawer was black and squirming!!! It was completely, totally, ALL THE WAY covered in huge black carpenter ants! They slammed the drawer shut, and Jasmin came toddling over to see what the matter was. They opened it to show her all the ants, and she screeched at the top of her mighty three-year-old lungs. I closed the drawer and sent Hannah and Cole to "go get Daddy!" He came running up the hill, opened the drawer, then jumped back as all the millions of ants came crawling out! Jasmin started screaming bloody murder; Daddy grabbed our broom and began sweeping them all out the door... and since it was the only way out of the prairie house (the other side was locked on the outside), we had no choice but to step in the middle of the black river of ant bodies! Nora, Anaja, and Bekah all ran out first, then I scooped up the still-screaming Jasmin in mei arms and ran after them. Uncle Jay and Mr. Jerry came up to see, and they helped mei daed stomp on all the ants. A minute or two later, the entire drawer came flying out of the door, ants and all.

After that scare, we took everything out of the prairie house, including the rug, and scrubbed, swept, and shined every piece of furniture, book, plate, and apron! We were taking no chances!