Great things come in small packages.

But sometimes the biggest, most overwhelmingly huge and frustrating problems come in the tiniest little bodies that you just want to murder in the most violent manner possible until your house is littered with the dead.

I’m talking about the ants.

Living in a bamboo house with a thatched roof means making peace with all of God’s creatures who make themselves at home. Since moving in, Sarah and I have enjoyed the company of rats, birds, mosquitoes, cats (or other unidentified cat-sized animals in the roof…) cockroaches, spiders, moths, snakes, a tarantula, and bugs that fall from the sky (roof) onto our heads. All of these have maybe given me a scare (the snake on my apron), grossed me out (roaches cuddling up in bed with me), or left me looking like a scarred leper (mosquitoes). But none of these have succeeded in ruffling me like the ants.

Whoever said they come marching one by one was sorely downplaying the gravity of the situation. Add a handful of zeroes after the one and now we’ll be speaking with veracity.

They moved in sometime during the fall months—well, the spring here (September, October), right about the time I started getting towards the end of my rope. It was innocent enough at first. Some in the food I accidentally left out, or making the occasional other appearance in the kitchen.

But then the troop surge came.

I can’t remember an exact moment, but something changed and all of a sudden our house was flooded with ants. They were everywhere. Including, but not limited to:
• My loofa sponge
• The sinks
• The animals’ food and water
• My makeup bag
• My roommate’s bed
• Inside our water filters
• My precious jar of nutella
• All over the shower head (so if you turned on the shower when you were already in it, your first shower would be a fresh dose of ant bodies)
• All throughout our stacks of clean clothes
• My underwear “drawer”
• Inside a sealed box of Pop-Tarts I got in a package (found their way into the box, then chewed their way through the foil packages. Splitting each precious tart open revealed a series of tunnels left where the miscreants had devoured their way through the heavenly cinnamon brown sugar filling… I felt my heart break in my chest. I ate several bites anyway. Hey, I think all the ants had left by then… I hope.)
• Anything damp. Apparently they aren’t just looking for food, they are looking for water. In any and all forms.

I don’t know what it was about these ants that got us so pissed off. Well actually, I do. The rats, they come out at night and we don’t really see them. The roaches try to keep to themselves, but when they crawl out of our sink while we are washing dishes and scare us half to death, they get squished. Etc. But the ants… literally nothing can be done. And believe me, we have tried everything. From bug spray so lethal that I am quite convinced I feel my own brain cells dying a poisonous death whenever we spray it, to ant traps that did nothing, to having to dry every single dish we ever washed in fear of leaving out something with drops of water on it (and then the damp drying cloth turning black with ant bodies before the evening was out), to cinnamon (apparently ants hate it? Lies), to bleach… each massacre just brought them back stronger than ever. The breaking point was when they finally, after a protracted effort on our part, got into our water filters. All three of them. Which led to me drinking our sink water unfiltered (which tasted more or less healthy…) and then getting sick. I could hear them laughing.

So it seemed like there was nothing else to do really than to make peace with them. Or as much peace as possible when finding them crawling through the refrigerator half an hour after I had cleaned it and nearly erupting in a fit of rage. Nothing like bathing yourself with a sponge filled of ants… or washing your dishes with a scrubber that they’ve probably been nesting in… or lifting up a cup of precious hot chocolate to take the first sip and realize the several dark spots you mistook for non-dissolved cocoa powder are really tiny little ants, floating there innocently in what was your supposed to be your indulgent cup of creamy goodness. Like it or not, there is no escaping them.

Part of me has to admire their evolutionary prowess: fifty of the little buggers can fit onto my thumbnail, and yet still they are the only thing we cannot seem to kill off. But the other part of me questions how they remain so prolific despite obvious stupidity (they love water, so when we refill the dog’s water bowl, they climb in for a drink, and fall in and die. Literally, ten minutes after we fill it, the thing will be black with dead ant bodies. And yet they continue trying!!! How do these species survive??? Oh look, mommy and daddy and thirteen thousand of my closest friends just went for a swim and drowned themselves, guess I should join them too!)

The season was just supposed to be a month or two. But due to lack of rain (or so they say… I am dubious of the truth of this claim) they are still around. Let me remind you, it is February. (Tomorrow). It rained for the first time in nearly two months this weekend. Still the ants remain. But we will see if they go away. Something tells me no.

I wish I could say that I have accepted the ant’s omnipresence, but that isn’t entirely accurate. Although instead of erupting into primal screams of rage (it has happened), I guess we could learn a few things from these ants. They are small. They might get stepped on, eaten, drowned. Perhaps some of their insect compadres don’t take them seriously, assuming they are too small to do anything. But yet despite this, they overcome. Defying all odds, the smallest creature has triumphed over Goliath, joining forces to work hard and never give up, succeeding in conquering the house of man in the true picture of resilience for the victory of all ant-kind.

Okay maybe that is a stretch.

But still, while they stick around, part of me wonders if there’s a life lesson I can learn from these little creatures. Use them for inspiration and metaphor instead of wasting way too much of my life trying to kill them when I know it will make no difference. But hey, no one can eat my Pop-Tarts and get away with it.

It’s been a rocky relationship. But until we finally break up for good, there will be more tiny tales to tell. And until then, may the squishing continue. At least it’s kind of therapeutic…

don’t you feel squeaky clean showering with this???!!

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