May 28, 2008
Dear Tiny Black Ants--
Let me start by assuring you that of all the types of ants that could be invading our home right now, I would elect your type for the job. Any other ants, especially your larger, fatter relatives, leave behind an unfortunate mess after being crushed under the quick whack of a shoe or a decisive swipe of a paper towel. However, your bodies are so small that initially it was hard to detect your presence as you began to infiltrate the perimeter of our bedroom. Pleasantly, killing you leaves behind no detectable stains, and that makes doing it easier.
Our cohabitation began about two months ago when I climbed into bed and pulled back our crisp new covers and laid eyes upon your small black spec of a body. Knowing you had been detected, you did what came naturally to you and froze, hoping your shiny black torso would somehow blend into the sea of creamy white sheets surrounding you. I was amused by your desperate attempt at survival and, rather than kill you on the spot for trespassing in my sterile sleeping space, I gave you a break and brushed you onto the floor.
Oh ant, what a mistake that was. Instead of fleeing our home, thankful for skirting the dangers therein, you instead mistook my mercy for hospitality and spread the word to your friends and family that my home was open to you.
First, you brought along a few pals with you on the return to my bed. I enjoy relaxing, too, but I don't lie around on my friends' pillows all day long and I most certainly don't keep them up at night by crawling up their arms and playing in their hair. You and your pals ruined snack time in the bedroom when 50 of you took the liberty of emptying the cup on my husband's nightstand. You forced me to eat breakfast in the living room every morning. It takes all meaning and fun out of the phrase "breakfast in bed" and if there's one thing you don't want to do, it's mess with my breakfast.
Things took a hostile turn when I found you pouring out from under our bedroom carpet and into the kitchen. Raid and ant traps along the walls apparently were minor setbacks because you soon began to appear in our dishwasher. I admire you, ants, for your uncanny ability to enter locked, airtight spaces. The famous Harry Houdini and street magician David Blaine would both be humbled by your powers of penetration and endurance. How did you manage to crawl into our refrigerator and survive? A magician never reveals his secrets…
You are like a chameleon. You blend into our black speckled faux-granite countertops with unsettling expertise. Only when I set my groceries down, do I notice your hundreds of black forms scrambling for cover so quickly that I can only kill three or four of you before the rest disappear from sight.
While I admire the skills, strength, and the ability of my opponent to make me itch on sight, these things are not enough for me to resign in defeat. Enter: the powers of the Container Store.
It may have taken me five hours, ants, but every morsel of food in our apartment is now encased in powers greater than yours, plastic containers with zero-access force fields surrounding them (aka snap-shut, rubber lined lids). Combined with my keen powers of observation, you are no match for these containers, even when you think you're being clever by hanging out on the sides, waiting for someone to open them.
Don't think for a second that I forgot about our refrigerated items. Everything has been contained. And the cabinets? All of them have been Lysol'ed, to mask the chemical odors of the trails you leave for your friends to find their way to my snacks.
And so, ants, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may as well pack up and leave now. You've mined all the ore and forced me to turn this place into a ghost town. I see that a few of you have hung around, mostly at the bottom of our dishwasher, the crevices of the magnetic strip that keeps our fridge closed, and occasionally on the outside of our sealed garbage cans, clinging to your hopes that things will turn around. As a hopeful person myself, it might seem hypocritical of me to inform you that there is no hope. Not for you. Not after Saturday when the apartment is pest-bombed and your nest is uncovered and eliminated.
While this has been a lesson in the art of war, I look forward to seeing you only on the sidewalks and in the park. And, who knows, if I'm feeling generous, I may even drop a few crumbs for you.
Your admiring, but victorious, opponent,
Ruth
