The Ant-A-Thon

I forgot about the vacuum bag being full until I had an ant-a-thon. Over a period of 5 days, extreme heat drove the buggers (they’re bugs, right?) inside. Medium-sized, small, tiny, black, brown, brownish-black, they came at me from all directions. I fought the good fight, winning at times, retreating, then coming back and wiping up, before the next onslaught arrived, black, brown, any size, any amount. Dozens, hundreds, thousands. I did a sample head count of 300 and multiplied it by ten. Yep, it was thousands. But I had my killing machine – the vacuum cleaner. I sucked up 10,000 marching armies, attacking me from all sides, above and below. I was winning, on top of it, until I noticed a disturbing factor: the ants appeared to be coming out of the vacuum cleaner. Whenever I lifted it up – it was never far from my person, not quite strapped to me, but always by my foot – there was a pile of ants under it. Oh no. The BIG OH NO. I would definitely have to change the bag in the vacuum.

I drank wine, as you do, to fortify myself for the task ahead, clipped my hair back for better vision, rubber-gloved my hands, snipped open the bag of bags to have a new bag at the ready, and approached the vacuum cleaner with trepidation. It had been my friend, we had been on the same side in this war, but now I was afraid of it. Very afraid. I took it outside. 

I couldn’t remember how to do it. I knew you had to lift something up to reveal the bag. I lifted something up. Just then the blackbird dropped by for some oats, fluffing his feathers for my attention, but I couldn’t deal with him. My nerves were not good. The vacuum looked all sort of innocent, but I knew, I knew what we had done together. I opened the wrong end, the filter end. Dang! Another increase of heartbeat. I had a wee stop (yes, a stop for a nervous wee, gloves off, then on again), hoping someone might turn up and do it for me. But no.

I ‘womaned’ up … opened the other end and there were 10,000 ants eyeballing me. Help! Eek! Close the lid. Nah! I ripped out the bag as fast as I could, away from my body, threw it down and watched. All was still, zero activity. Good. Then I tried to put the new bag in place but I hadn’t paid enough attention on how I had just taken the old one out. I got it in with some wrangling and swearing, then unleashed my secret weapon… chemical warfare. A long spray of fly spray in the bag, then closed up the cleaner. The old ant-filled bag went inside another bag, the bag was sprayed, was tied up and dispatched to the garage. 

Then I poured myself another glass of rosé, and exhausted, sunk into the couch to watch Emily in Paris on Netflix. Oh drat, when I turned it on I remembered I’d finished watching the last Episode the night before. While it’s true the whole ant drama had been entertainment and had filled in the evening, I most definitely prefer Emily’s clothes and location. Foolishly, I looked down at the floor and saw ants walking aimlessly around. Where were they coming from now? I did a once-over vacuum of the floor, flopped onto the couch again, with the cleaner still switched on, and sucked up the stragglers as they came within reach. Then I sprayed fly spray at the door (like, hello ants, wrong house!), turned off the lights and went to bed. Lying in bed I thought of all the people who wanted to be friends with me on Facebook – I don’t know any of them – and I wondered if they would still want to be friends with me if they knew the real me, sitting on the couch at 9.30pm sucking up ants with my vacuum.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. The war raged for 8 days. 8 DAYS! Finally, peace was restored, with just minor incursions which were quickly dealt to by collecting them with a damp hand and rinsing my hand in a sink filled with water (a very good method of ant-gathering). I began to pray for rain, not just to fill the tanks and water the vegetables, but to drown ants. My prayers were answered on Monday. Rain came!