Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Over the weekend my kitchen, birthplace of epicurean feats too delectable to mention, transformed into a marketplace for ants. You might argue this is the consequence of eating exclusively off the floor, but I assure you I vacuum after every meal. Despite this precaution, there seems to be no shortage of crumbs and other treasures these creatures have minted into a kind of currency, monies paid to their insatiable She-Queen of the dark catacombs.
These are black ants, rather than the fire ants my distant relatives loved slipping into my bedsheets every New Year, and their relative harmlessness notwithstanding I’ve installed motels along the kitchen perimeter. You know what? The architectural spree was slightly heartbreaking.
Remember ant farms? I’ve never owned one, yet the exhortations of some elementary schoolteachers come to mind easily, wouldn’t you say? The farm is educational, they claimed, a true testament to industrious workers worthy of emulation, never mind the one kid who always mistook the farm for a cookie jar. Watch the buggers eat! Look at them move. This is why I was initially circumspect about placing traps in my apartment.
Have you ever seen an ant drag a sesame seed? The act is grueling, patient, often fruitless, and it’s the perfect analogy for those of us caught in the grind. Have you ever seen multiple ants try to transport a crumb? We’re talking group dynamics that wouldn’t improve after a three-day workshop at the Hilton, my friends. You watch the little fellows carry a crumb a few steps, bite off more than they can chew, and pitch headlong as the payload crashes into the ground and sends their asses pointing toward the sky. And still they retain their grip. If I listened closely enough, I’m guessing I would hear them emitting profanities from their thoraxes.
“Marty, I bet the boys down at local 782 don’t have to deal with this shit,” Chuck would say.
“Actually, buddy,” Marty would reply in between breaths, “their Queen Bitch makes them carry her around. Listen, I’m going to check into this fine establishment that just fell out of the sky.”
Do you see how these clever motel deathtraps change matters? They presuppose the worker ants will carry the poison back to the colony’s food supply, which presupposes the queen ant gorges herself first, thereby presupposing EVERYBODY DIES IN THE END. It’s a downer. Imagine if you slaved away in a room all day, carrying food every which way, and then you took a break in a bathroom that materialized out of thin air, only to track home some arsenic and poison the communal wife. That’d do it.