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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Dead Ant

The sugar ants had returned to my kitchen while I was away last week, tiny little blighters. I found them last night, a thin trail of corner-of-the-eye movement. They scurried, formicated in fact, almost invisible, past the front of the sink and across the food preparation area. I traced their point of entry, a fissure in the aging sealant by the window, to their destination, a gap in the contact between one of the upper cupboards and the wall.

So I drenched both areas with some climatacidal insecticide. And then again, more spurts for good measure.

I came into the kitchen this morning. At the front of the sink was a rather large huddle of the wee things, maybe 100, 150. Trapped, unable to go home or to go on, they gathered themselves into a group for reassurance, maybe like a township seeking safety after a monumental disaster.

It reminded me sadly of the Japan experience of the past few weeks. The earthquake of my footsteps, the tsunami of killer spray.

I actually felt touched.

So I with a mighty fingertip, like a solid cloud of radiation meltdown fallout, I swiped across their emergency shelter and their vain hopes and wiped them all out of their misery...

End of metaphor.

E@L

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I prefer to use ant poison. :P

Momentary Madness said...

I use a little orange juice they climb in and can’t get out- a horrible death I never quite get over but I can’t find port of entry and I have tried- it gets ridiculous here in summer watching marching lines around the skirting- harmless little bastards but annoying and not nice when visitors come; they don’t even have the cop on to stay hidden. The poor auld Japanese were (always their own worst enemy) the butt of jokes when I was a kid, mostly forgotten. The robotic nation and indeed they have had the last laugh (3rd most powerful nation in the world) up till now. I think we are missing (little media reporting) the point of the Japanese disaster: over 400 billion dollars pumped into banking/markets to get them back on their feet while the people (to a greater or lesser degree) affected depend on outside help to scrape - what little they can – to build back a living. (Business comes first it seems everywhere)

expat@large said...

Brilliant point about the financial aid but not the humanitarian aid...

Momentary Madness said...

Well I read (in various parts?) people were waiting on tents from the UK. No proper/coordinated food, water deliveries yet (as you agree) in comparison there was frenzied milling to protect shareholders. I didn’t get any news about the government’s extraordinary effort to help and reassure people that their properties would be restored. Are you saying the media just didn’t bother to report it and the international aid is just customary?

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