English: Small hand-drawn ant graphic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It was a day like any other day.
My tugboat man and I awoke to the caw-caphony of a million restless crows, wishing us either a good morning or something less pleasant from the tops of every eucalyptus tree in Southern California.
I could almost taste that first fragrant sip of coffee as I put on my glasses and pulled open the drapes.
Trader Joe’s French Roast, freshly ground, filtered water — I was salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs (need I interject how much I abhor and detest any kind of animal experimentation?)
Tugboat man opened the patio doors.
“Good morning. It’s gonna be a hot one”, he said.
“That’s what they say”, I replied. And “Good morning to you!”
We are polite like that, we really are! (Well, most some of the time.)
“You’re not gonna like this”, cautioned my tugboat man.
“Uh oh, what’s wrong?”
“The kitchen is covered in ants.”
“On every surface.”
“I know you’re going to go crazy. I better leave now, haha.”
“OH MY GOD!”
“AY DIOS MIO”
This day just turned into the worst day ever.
Can you imagine what a roomful of ants, not only on every surface, countertop, floor, sink, and cupboard DOES to someone like me who is ever-so-slightly OCD?
I didn’t know where to start.
But I knew we needed coffee before anything was going to happen.
However long this cleanup would take, my strategy was to begin where it was most needed — the coffee pot area.
Can you believe there ware ants INSIDE THE GLASS CARAFE?!
Because of our ongoing drought and extreme heat, I guess they were searching for water; quite possibly that’s why the kitchen sink was black with swarming ants.
Or maybe they just decided to choose Casa de Enchanted Seashells for some sort of karmic retribution — for what, I have no idea, as I try to NEVER hurt or maim one of Mother Nature’s creatures.
But this was too much to bear.
I could foresee the hours of my day…purging all of the pots and pans and dishes out of the cupboards and food out of the pantry — cleaning and sterilizing every f***ing thing.
Like soldiers marching on the Rhine, they broke me.
I retreated.
I waved the white flag.
But it was only a strategy designed to divert those little soldiers from their goal of full-scale conquest.
I reached under the sink, surreptitiously pulled out a gigantic canister of ant spray, and with a battle cry reminiscent of Mel Gibson In Braveheart I let loose a vigorous stream of poison with the force of General Leslie Groves‘ Manhattan Project atomic bomb testing in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Princess Rosebud won this round. I’m not proud that I surrendered to the use of toxins to win this war, but I felt I had no choice.
Finally, we enjoyed a well-deserved mug of life-giving, life-sustaining dark, rich, bold coffee.
The spoils of war, my friends.
Mission Accomplished.
P.S. As much as I wanted them GONE, I can’t help but admire their determination. Let’s all sing along with Frank Sinatra in “High Hopes”
SUNDAY UPDATE…BREAKING NEWS…
Mission NOT so accomplished. A terror cell of insurgents split from the main army, invading our bedroom. Coming from the attic, this has nothing to do with being thirsty. This is a military coup. Princess Rosebud is fighting back alone; her tugboat man retreated to the safety of a beach.
Gif source: http://webhost.bridgew.edu/jhayesboh/coffee/steaming-heart-cup.gif
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 
nothing worse than a roomful of ants in the morning. I am glad you conquered those rascals.
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Thank you for the comment and support!
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Wow, don’t blame you for spraying. Got to have your morning coffee!!!
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Yes we DID! But the smell of ant spray, ICK.
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I had a TERRIBLE time with ants for several years and waged total war. No matter what I did, nothing kept them out…not one natural deterrent, not every chemical I could get my hands on, not hunting down the trails into my house. I found that my Virginia Creeper and grape vine were the culprits…even on the side of the house that did not have them.(Strangely, the two sides that have a little English ivy are ant-free.) So check the plants in the near proximity of your house. I hope they are gone for good.Mine seem to be…at great sacrifice.
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Because we live in such a high fire danger area, we eliminated all plants close to the house-I think it’s an actual law here, so that’s not the culprit. We can’t figure it out, but hub did hightail it out of here, he knows not to get in the way when I’m obsessively cleaning lol!
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Ugh. I feel your uncomfortable state. When we were replacing windows, I discovered a huge infestation of carpenter ants in our bedroom wall. No weapon was left unused. I don’t like chemicals but hey…sometimes you do what to have to do
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I felt so weird about it, and yes, uncomfortable, and also hypocritical too. But I did it anyway. I mean, nothing else works for that heavy of an infestation, I can understand your situation too!
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Our invasion is always in late May or June. And it happens every year. Not TOO bad this year, but I totally hate them. I have to be careful which sprays I use because of the dogs and because I’d just as soon not poison us or the local song birds. They always come back, no matter what we do. We’ve just learned to cope with them. Like we have a choice, right?
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I wouldn’t mind them so much if they stayed outside, but when they’re in food, what can you do? Plus they do bite and those little suckers HURT!
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UGH. Ants are my lifelong mortal enemy! I still bear psychological scars from an incident back in my old apartment one day when hundreds of them spontaneously began stampeding out of the furnace room. I had myself quite the small-scale bloodbath that day. And in our current house, I have to re-fortify our pantry every couple of years because they keep slowly building new bank-robber tunnels to break into it. One years, they infested all our cookies; another year, they developed a craving for our honey; another year, they left everything in there untouched (even our sweets!) except they kept honing in like guided missiles on my Whole Wheat Ritz crackers. No idea where they got that oddly specific craving.
I repeat: UGH!
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Then you of all people understand our pain. Every morning I wake up and expect to see another invasion somewhere else. I can only imagine what our attic must look like. UGH is right!
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oh that’s horrible. Horrible. HORRIBLE. I had a mini invasion once (twice), and that was traumatic enough. I can’t imagine. and now the bedroom? Argh!
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It was SO traumatic I only slept a couple hours at a time and kept checking the walls. So far, so good tho. But today is the hottest it has been, so we might be in for a repeat performance.
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Ewww! With a kitchen swarming with them, you really had no choice but to resort to spray. I hope they’re gone for good.
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Thank you! I hope so, too. Not that it wasn’t a great way to do a total clean, but that’s not what I had planned that day!
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I don’t like the ant invasion when it hits our place. So hard to get rid of ’em. Hope you’re are gone for good.
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So far, so good, but it’s still hot and humid, so I haven’t totally relaxed yet!
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Don’t give up the flag Little Soldier. For it’s high, high, hee, in the field artillery as those caissons keep moving along. Or so one of the lullabies went my mother used to sing.
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Can you see me saluting to you? I’m snapping to atten-SHUN!
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