HOLEE FUCK. this is not happening.
so, there's this problem that we're having in this apartment. and believe it or not, it has nothing to do with that bastard charles. nor does it have to do with tommy and his propensity to have me tivo programs about "xbox: the next generation TOTALLY REVEALED [hosted by elijah wood and with a special performance by the killers]". nor, surprisingly, does it have to do with me and the fact that i just drank a half a bottle of wine. (this is what i do when i'm alone. i drink wine, check my bloglines subscription like six times a minute [why don't you people update more?!] and watch either a) under the tuscan sun b) sense & sensibility c) hours 2-4 of pride & prejudice the a&e version. next year is gonna be GREAT.)
no, the problem is much larger, and, funnily, at the same time much smaller. it is the ants. the tiny, fucking ants.
we started getting them about a month ago - they marched under the door in a small and sparse line, making their way from our landing to the bar between the kitchen and living room. at first i thought they were kinda cute. little tiny bugs! i mean, there weren't too many of them, ants don't bite you (well, these little black ones) or gauge your eyeballs out or nest in your hair or anything. plus, i thought, a few ant hotels would take care of the issue. no problemo! off to the giant to buy a few ant hotels and set them up in strategic positions along the walls. of course i felt much remorse at poisoning god's creatures, but dude - these are fucking insects. they're just lucky i'm not stabbing them with toothpicks and laughing.
for a couple weeks nothing happened - the ants neither increased or decreased but just kept on their steady march along our blonde bamboo floors. just as i began to be frustrated, i whisked myself off to fabulous italy, where there is gelato and stone villas and creepy monks, but no ants. and thus i forgot.
but by the time we got back, the problem seemed to have gotten worse. charles had been cleaning a lot while we were gone, and even his super magical cleaning abilities couldn't get rid of the little suckers. worse, they started to have an inclination for our dishwasher and kitchen counters. if we so much left a crumb of food or swipe of oil anywhere, they were on it. even worse, i started, like...hallucinating. ants, suddenly, were everywhere. i'd feel a slight breeze on my arm and freak out, thinking ants were crawling on it. out of the corner of my eye i'd see a slight movement and whip around to whack my hand down on the offending ant, only to find out nothing was actually there. it's been a little worrying. and a little stressful. i'm running the dishwasher at least once a day; the kitchen is getting mopped and wiped down all the time; i yell at tommy if he so much as thinks about leaving out the cutting board.
WORST OF ALL, i am constantly thinking about, like, ant military strategy. i worry that i'm cleaning too much and killing too many ants so that the offending suckers can't get back to their terrible little nest and inform their wiggly brethren that the kitchen counters are being sponged six times a night by some crazy yelling lady. i think about letting them swarm around a while on clean surfaces so that they realize there ain't nothing there and leave me the hell alone. i mean, can it get any worse than thinking about reverse psychology on ants? i think not.
but oh (and you'll never believe this), it just got worse. a lot worse. here i am, with aforementioned wine and terrible diane lane movie, enjoying the night alone. also with me is unaforementioned piece of lemon pound cake, which i just baked my little ass off to make last night. yummy, thick, lemony lemon pound cake. so good. i'm over on the couch, SEVERAL FEET away from the kitchen, in an area where there has never been an ant sighting. and you'll never guess what. go on, guess. yeah. no. a FUCKING ANT CRAWLED OUT OF NOWHERE ON TO MY PRECIOUS LEMON CAKE.
blogosphere, i'm writing this bitter entry because i need help. i'm pretty sure it is not this healthy to feel so much anger towards, well, anything, but especially bugs. it is also not healthy to be cleaning the kitchen twice a day and imagining ants crawling all over you. i'm about to check myself into a mental health clinic in south africa. please help me. give me your awesome, your cheap, your ant-murdering techniques. because i just saw an ant crawl across my laptop, and i'm about to go postal.
