Last night, I came home to an episode of National Geographic Explorer. I don't have a TV. How, you might ask, does one do this?
Be warned, the following is graphic, and gross. If you read it and go 'ew', don't say I didn't warn you.
I'm working even more hours lately. Now that I'm really living alone, I need the money, and if I want to stay happily employed at my second job, I need to keep my availability open; so that means more and longer days.
Last night was the second 16 hour day in a row: of three.
I came home wicked tired.
I half stumbled into the house, somewhat disappointed that I wouldn't get a bedtime story, and somewhat OK with it, since I was almost too tired to enjoy it, dropped my bags inside and shuffled into my room. I turned on the light and started to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and I noticed some stuff on the bath mat in the door threshold.
What is that?
*wrinkle nose*
*squint*
It was two piles of 'stuff'. One pile looked vaguely like calamari in a butternut squash sauce. The other was recognizable as cat puke.
The recognizable pile was covered in a decent swarm of large red ants: really large. I stopped and thought of what to do now.
Let me step back a bit and explain.
I don't like to kill stuff: really, ever. I mean, if I have a bug that I don't like in my house, I prefer to take it outside than kill it, and I really dislike to use that toxic spray. Notable exception: palmetto bugs, those must die, by any means possible. Thankfully, my Tiigrikiisu loves palmetto bugs: to play with to death, and crunch their bodies. :-) I noticed a bit back that I have these giant carnivorous ants that appear out of nowhere, and then disappear about once every couple of weeks or so. They actually don't bother me too much, it's a bit disconcerting feeling like I'm dealing with forty or fifty formidable uninvited guests; but they don't stay longer than a few days, and you know about guests that don't stay long... yes, they are tolerable.
Well, being somewhat observant, I realized that Tiigri was killing palmetto bugs, hither and yon, and these guys were cleaning up the carcasses. Nice! As long as they don't bite me, or move in permanently, I pretty much leave them alone, and it's not really so gross. I mean obviously, if there is a big dead bug in the middle of the floor, I clean him up with the little dust broom and flush him. But the bodies aren't always conspicuously located. Tiigri is effective, but he isn't always overt.
Well, last night, the ants had set upon the pile of cat puke like it was a Chinese buffet. So, I'm looking at the spectacle in the threshold to my bathroom, and I have two thoughts: what the heck is the other pile, and I need to get this cleaned up so I can go to sleep.
First things first - satisfy my curiosity - I ignored the ants for a moment and looked closer at the butternut calamari thing. Then, I realized. The stupid cat had ingested (temporarily) one of the lint free cleaning cloths that came with my iPad screen protector thingie.
What an idiot - I mean, it's cloth! Does the cat think he's a goat? Apparently it didn't sit very well with him, and took most of his dinner along with it when it came back out. Sometimes it's not so great to have a cat that eats anything.
So, I grabbed some toilet paper, wrinkled up my nose, and grabbed it and tossed it in the garbage. Ok, pile one down, objective one complete, now to clean this stuff up and get to bed. It was midnight by then, and I was starting to feel woozy from lack of sleep and was entering my caffeine apogee. I figured: I'm home free now.
Wrong.
I grabbed another wad of toilet paper and prepared to grab up the other mess and get on with my life.
The ants had another idea. To be fair, there were more of them than there were me. To be really fair, there are more cats than me also, but the cats at least scatter when I seem displeased.
I tried to get them to 'shoo' off the mess. I grabbed a bit at the pile. But, I didn't really want to kill any of the ants. I certainly didn't want to kill any by smooshing: that kind of freaks me out.
I batted a bit at them, trying to disperse the crowd. They scattered, but they seemed to throw up a chemical signal to their cohorts that to my untrained eye very clearly meant 'Dude! Hurry up man, she's gonna call the cops!', or something like that. Because they all started running around like mad, trying to grab off chunks of the cat puke and carry it off, like little arthropod doggy bags from Le Maison du Chaton.
Imagine me, standing in my bare feet on my bathroom floor, bent over a pile of cat puke, slightly swaying in semi-delirium from lack of sleep and impending unconsciousness, watching a mini swarm of the largest ants many of you have ever seen run around like mad trying desperately to grab up a little ball of cat puke to take home for dinner.
Then I started talking to them.
I was saying things, like: 'come on guys, I really need to clean this up'. All the while swatting at them gently with the paper, and then gently brushing them off it again when they merely jumped on it, and didn't actually just go back where they came from. This one ant, desperately balled up a huge wad of the puke and tugged furiously on it, trying to drag it along backward with him very much like a little kid trying to drag a giant stuffed animal home from the fair. The ball was bigger than his head. I honestly think if it had been of a substance other than pre-digested cat food he would have easily picked it up and I would have let him go home with it. As it was, he was fighting a losing battle, not unlike the one I was fighting against sleep.
Then I begin pleading a bit with them, and trying to snatch up little bits of puke as I could without actually picking up the ants: I didn't really want to flush them in the toilet and kill them. Yeah, I know...
I debated whether to let that one ant continue on with his ball-o-puke and marveled a bit at the fact that not one ant crawled on my naked toes and had taken a bite when I finally saw my opening and grabbed the big pile and tossed it in the toilet. Two ants lost their lives last night. Yes, I felt bad about it. It was them or me.
There was still a little pile left and the ants were now in a frenzy of activity, all of them doing everything they could to get some loot before I cleaned it up. How did they know I was going to take it away? I have no idea. Ants are super smart. They were all apparently coordinated in their effort, and they were all sending silent instructions to one another on how best to distract me so the others could get a shot at the pile before I got the tissue near it: little buggers.
I gave one more desperate lunge, and the ants knew it was time to give it up. The last of the cat puke was cleaned up without further drama. The ants nonchalantly moseyed around now with their little mandibles full of whatever grossness they had managed to pillage and I got ready to brush my teeth and head to bed.
When I woke up in the morning, there wasn't a single ant.
I still feel bad about those two.
Be warned, the following is graphic, and gross. If you read it and go 'ew', don't say I didn't warn you.
I'm working even more hours lately. Now that I'm really living alone, I need the money, and if I want to stay happily employed at my second job, I need to keep my availability open; so that means more and longer days.
Last night was the second 16 hour day in a row: of three.
I came home wicked tired.
I half stumbled into the house, somewhat disappointed that I wouldn't get a bedtime story, and somewhat OK with it, since I was almost too tired to enjoy it, dropped my bags inside and shuffled into my room. I turned on the light and started to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and I noticed some stuff on the bath mat in the door threshold.
What is that?
*wrinkle nose*
*squint*
It was two piles of 'stuff'. One pile looked vaguely like calamari in a butternut squash sauce. The other was recognizable as cat puke.
The recognizable pile was covered in a decent swarm of large red ants: really large. I stopped and thought of what to do now.
Let me step back a bit and explain.
I don't like to kill stuff: really, ever. I mean, if I have a bug that I don't like in my house, I prefer to take it outside than kill it, and I really dislike to use that toxic spray. Notable exception: palmetto bugs, those must die, by any means possible. Thankfully, my Tiigrikiisu loves palmetto bugs: to play with to death, and crunch their bodies. :-) I noticed a bit back that I have these giant carnivorous ants that appear out of nowhere, and then disappear about once every couple of weeks or so. They actually don't bother me too much, it's a bit disconcerting feeling like I'm dealing with forty or fifty formidable uninvited guests; but they don't stay longer than a few days, and you know about guests that don't stay long... yes, they are tolerable.
Well, being somewhat observant, I realized that Tiigri was killing palmetto bugs, hither and yon, and these guys were cleaning up the carcasses. Nice! As long as they don't bite me, or move in permanently, I pretty much leave them alone, and it's not really so gross. I mean obviously, if there is a big dead bug in the middle of the floor, I clean him up with the little dust broom and flush him. But the bodies aren't always conspicuously located. Tiigri is effective, but he isn't always overt.
Well, last night, the ants had set upon the pile of cat puke like it was a Chinese buffet. So, I'm looking at the spectacle in the threshold to my bathroom, and I have two thoughts: what the heck is the other pile, and I need to get this cleaned up so I can go to sleep.
First things first - satisfy my curiosity - I ignored the ants for a moment and looked closer at the butternut calamari thing. Then, I realized. The stupid cat had ingested (temporarily) one of the lint free cleaning cloths that came with my iPad screen protector thingie.
What an idiot - I mean, it's cloth! Does the cat think he's a goat? Apparently it didn't sit very well with him, and took most of his dinner along with it when it came back out. Sometimes it's not so great to have a cat that eats anything.
So, I grabbed some toilet paper, wrinkled up my nose, and grabbed it and tossed it in the garbage. Ok, pile one down, objective one complete, now to clean this stuff up and get to bed. It was midnight by then, and I was starting to feel woozy from lack of sleep and was entering my caffeine apogee. I figured: I'm home free now.
Wrong.
I grabbed another wad of toilet paper and prepared to grab up the other mess and get on with my life.
The ants had another idea. To be fair, there were more of them than there were me. To be really fair, there are more cats than me also, but the cats at least scatter when I seem displeased.
I tried to get them to 'shoo' off the mess. I grabbed a bit at the pile. But, I didn't really want to kill any of the ants. I certainly didn't want to kill any by smooshing: that kind of freaks me out.
I batted a bit at them, trying to disperse the crowd. They scattered, but they seemed to throw up a chemical signal to their cohorts that to my untrained eye very clearly meant 'Dude! Hurry up man, she's gonna call the cops!', or something like that. Because they all started running around like mad, trying to grab off chunks of the cat puke and carry it off, like little arthropod doggy bags from Le Maison du Chaton.
Imagine me, standing in my bare feet on my bathroom floor, bent over a pile of cat puke, slightly swaying in semi-delirium from lack of sleep and impending unconsciousness, watching a mini swarm of the largest ants many of you have ever seen run around like mad trying desperately to grab up a little ball of cat puke to take home for dinner.
Then I started talking to them.
I was saying things, like: 'come on guys, I really need to clean this up'. All the while swatting at them gently with the paper, and then gently brushing them off it again when they merely jumped on it, and didn't actually just go back where they came from. This one ant, desperately balled up a huge wad of the puke and tugged furiously on it, trying to drag it along backward with him very much like a little kid trying to drag a giant stuffed animal home from the fair. The ball was bigger than his head. I honestly think if it had been of a substance other than pre-digested cat food he would have easily picked it up and I would have let him go home with it. As it was, he was fighting a losing battle, not unlike the one I was fighting against sleep.
Then I begin pleading a bit with them, and trying to snatch up little bits of puke as I could without actually picking up the ants: I didn't really want to flush them in the toilet and kill them. Yeah, I know...
I debated whether to let that one ant continue on with his ball-o-puke and marveled a bit at the fact that not one ant crawled on my naked toes and had taken a bite when I finally saw my opening and grabbed the big pile and tossed it in the toilet. Two ants lost their lives last night. Yes, I felt bad about it. It was them or me.
There was still a little pile left and the ants were now in a frenzy of activity, all of them doing everything they could to get some loot before I cleaned it up. How did they know I was going to take it away? I have no idea. Ants are super smart. They were all apparently coordinated in their effort, and they were all sending silent instructions to one another on how best to distract me so the others could get a shot at the pile before I got the tissue near it: little buggers.
I gave one more desperate lunge, and the ants knew it was time to give it up. The last of the cat puke was cleaned up without further drama. The ants nonchalantly moseyed around now with their little mandibles full of whatever grossness they had managed to pillage and I got ready to brush my teeth and head to bed.
When I woke up in the morning, there wasn't a single ant.
I still feel bad about those two.
