Every inch of my legs is burning with fire ant bites, real and imagined. One bite on my left calf has a 5 inch radius of swollen, hot skin. I took an antihistamine. I had more than a few glasses of wine last night. We ran out of ibuprofen. As I nursed my numerous wounds, I had but one thought to comfort me: The Exterminator is Coming.
Let me give credit where credit is due: Audrey is the one who started all this, when she fell on a hill getting into the house the other day. My little run-in from Tuesday night was chalked up to Personal Stupidity (which has been beating me for years) until Aaron told me about Audrey's little incident. That night, I dreamt that the dog was covered in fire ants, that she disintegrated like The Mummy, and I had to get my kids onto a spaceship. I checked the yard the next day and we have upwards of thirty ant hills on our tiny yard. The back yard also has an infestation.
Whatever do I mean by fire ants? Excellent question.
When I grew up in Central Virginia, we always had ant hills. They were a little red/orange mound of dirt and we had two ant varieties: black and red. Black ants supposedly didn't bite, but red ants supposedly did. I don't think I ever got bitten by an ant, though I would pick up the black ones whenever I got the chance. I'd find a tiny one and let him scurry over my hands while I walked, naming him and talking to him until I put him back on an ant hill. When he arrived on the new ant hill, he probably upset the new tribe and was torn limb from limb, but I gladly went along my merry way, satisfied that I had given my ant friend a ride. Awwww...
Fast forward about 25 years and I'm in Texas and ants are NO JOKE. I'm always running around outside barefoot, so I got my first ant bite in April or so, when I was checking out my garden. I was surprised to see one of my old ant friends running away from my foot, but I didn't learn my lesson. I keep going outside barefoot to ask a neighbor a question and inevitably, no matter how careful I am, I get bitten. They'll bite and keep running too - I caught one on my bicep the other week and from the time I felt the pain (immediately) to the time I grabbed him was mere milliseconds and he was biting me while he was sprinting, not kidding. Over the next three days, my entire upper arm, from shoulder to elbow, was red, hot, and swollen from two close bites from ONE TINY FIRE ANT.
Another fun trick from my childhood was dropping a cookie on the ground next to an ant hill, then watching the ants descend and demolish it over the afternoon. I'm sure my mother liked that too, since I always got an extra cookie for the ants.
That also doesn't work with Fire Ants, as I learned today. I put a cracker on their hill to show my kids a fun childhood moment. Thousands of ants showed up, but the cracker is still there hours later so it got boring once the ants stopped moving. Some are guarding it as part of the hill, but nary a bite has been taken. Now I remember: in April, I found a dead baby bird in our yard, missing its head and heart thanks to our former neighbor's sadistic cat. I reported it to our housing office, ants covered it. Animal Control showed up the next day, and there wasn't so much as a baby bird beak left as evidence. Lesson learned: fire ants feast on flesh. And dog food - Madigan hasn't been able to eat outside for a while now.
Anyway, after Tuesday night, I was plotting my own revenge. I went on Pinterest and Google to find Fire Ant treatments. I foresaw a drawn out battle where I would try a new kind of torture on every ant hill to see what worked, taking glee in their suffering. Aaron and I have used water to wash away the hill, but it comes back (the ants are underground). My father-in-law told us at dinner that he and his friends used firecrackers or something when he was little. The explosion was cool, but didn't kill the ants. I silently decided to set my yard on fire and spent dessert debating how to build a fire break to protect the house.
Yesterday morning, I put in the work order before I could stop myself. I went outside and looked at the ants. The slightest touch and hundreds came to the surface. I wondered where the matches were but then remembered the work order. As a temporary Texan, that resonated and I modified an old battle cry to channel my anger and guide the fight: "Remember the Work Order!" Then I thought about fashioning a fur cloak as a Stark of Winterfell to tell people "The Exterminator is Coming." Then I got old school and went "The Ant Man Cometh" and this devolved so that I was distracted for a moment. Until I started itching again and looked for a lighter and came full circle with "Remember the Mantras!"
When the kids came home, I decided to show them a new 2-foot ant hill that had popped up overnight, to educate them about the ants before the exterminator drove in with his own Enola Gay to blindside these antropolises. Antropoli. Antropoles. Whatever. We were standing a safe distance from the New Ant City when I noticed Sebastian's shoe was covered in angry fire ants, who had emerged from a new suburb we hadn't noticed. SON OF A...
We ran inside, I threw his shoe out the front door and scrambled to check both kids feet before my own. As I finished, the phone rang. The exterminator would be here the next day (today). I nearly wept with gratitude. It would have been very awkward if that woman had shown up at the house to deliver the news in person because I would have collapsed in her arms. With Sebastian standing there lecturing me about throwing shoes.
The company said they would be here between noon and 4, but I have waited since 6:30 this morning. I have not showered: I really didn't want to miss the guy. I kept the kids home to watch, though they are suddenly not interested. If I wasn't having lunch with Aaron and talking to the landscapers who suddenly showed up to fix our backyard (in response to my December work order, yeah), I would have put on my war paint.
When the gentleman came, I walked him to every ant hill on our tiny rental property, though he assured me he knew which type of ant this was and what type of stuff to use from the moment he saw a bunch on our tree that we hadn't noticed. I showed him my leg. He understood it was personal and he let me walk the battlefield. I'm supposed to wait an hour, but a part of me wants to be out there, kicking the hills and watching the colonies go silent. This is war.
I had but one request at the end of this war, but I didn't think the exterminator could comply, and Aaron was right there and would probably have undermined the seriousness of the request. ALL I want, all I want in the WORLD, is the thorax of each of those wretched little fire demons, hand delivered to me. I will thread them together in the dark of moon, creating armor the likes of which the world has never seen. When any other fire ant dares to return to this property, I will put on that Fire Ant Thorax Armor with my face painted, and I will charge out the door, yelling "FOR FREEDOM!"
And then I will probably feel a small burning pinch on the back of my leg that will send me back to the work order website.
No comments:
Post a Comment