All Creatures Great and Small

I don't worry too much about the "great" or large creatures.  The chances of having an elephant stumble into our house is practically nil.  And I don't think even a very large breed of dog would dare take on our house full of cats.  No, unfortunately, it's the small creatures that have me stressed out.

When I got up this morning, I was in a very good mood.  Weather forecast said 78 and partly sunny.  So when I got my mother up for breakfast and her meds, I was teasing her and greeting all the cats with much petting and sweet talk.  Even the cat puke on the kitchen floor didn't bother me too much.  Finding the silver lining, I thought, at least it was on the floor and not the rug.  I reached for some paper towels.

I won't print the words that came out of my mouth when I saw the first ant.  Yeah, the first of many.  I grabbed the ant spray and started killing them.  They weren't swarming, but there were enough to keep me busy for a few minutes.  When I didn't see any more live ones, I started wiping the counters with the Clorox wipes.  I've said before, I'm not the best housekeeper, but neither am I a slob.  There really wasn't much that should have attracted the little buggers.  And when I wipe the counters and table, I actually move things to get in the corners and edges.  So, as I'm cleaning the counters, I move the toaster oven to check behind and under it.  The toaster oven bumped the 'on' switch on the blender, which startled me, causing me to yell and step back--right into the cat puke I had forgotten about due to the blasted ants.

So, after turning off the blender, I'm trying to clean up the puke, pull my sock off and find the ants' ingress--all at the same time.  I see more of the ubiquitous blighters on the wall.  What the heck?  Were they having a party?  With paper towels in one hand and ant spray in the other, I attack the wall, while still cleaning the floor.  At some point I had the good sense to move the cat food bowls so I didn't get bug spray in them.  I don't even remember doing that.  Fortunately, the new ant spray is non-staining and odor-free, with a setting for "stream" instead of "spray" so the kitchen wasn't filled with fumes.  Unfortunately, it's still chemicals being squirted and my lungs and sinuses knew it.

It wasn't long before I was sneezing and coughing.  My eyes watered, making it difficult to see the tiny critters.  I moved things away from the wall and Tabitha (since the blender was off) decided she needed to check on my progress.  In a side note, cats don't eat ants!  I told her she should eat them.  Bears eat ants.  Aardvarks eat ants.  I didn't mention anteaters--too obvious.  Tabitha couldn't care less about bears and aardvarks.  But she did have to see what I was doing, which put her beautiful, copper-colored stripes right in front of me.  (I know women who would pay a fortune to have their hair the color of Tabitha's fur.)  I couldn't spray with her there, which was probably for the best, considering I could barely breathe anymore.  There I am, coughing and sneezing, hopping on one foot, dirty sock hanging half off the other foot, ant spray in one hand, used paper towels in the other, looking through watery eyes past a cat so I could check for more ants.  Then I hear my mother ask "What's going on?"

Oh, brother!

Well, leaving my mother on ant patrol, I threw the paper towels in the garbage, blew my nose for an hour (okay, okay, more like five minutes), took off both socks and threw them in the laundry, sprayed around the kitchen baseboard and then rewashed the saucepan because God knows what had gotten into it.  While I was washing the pan, I spotted a few more ants gathered around the stainless steel scrubber.  Ah-ha!  These were grease ants.  As opposed to sugar ants.  Not that it makes them any better, but at least it was an explanation.  I'd made a frozen pizza the night before and had left the cutter and server in the sink.  There were a few more ants in the sink, too, but that got washed thoroughly.  I took some fiendish pleasure in running the garbage disposal while I watched the ants go down the drain.

My mother thought it was all terribly funny.  Not the ants, but everything else.

When I made dinner, I kept a sharp eye out.  All's quiet in the kitchen.  For now.