Attack of the Antonians

 

I finally remembered to scan this drawing of Adah’s that she made last fall when we were under full ant attack. It’s been on the fridge and then sitting on my desk next to the computer. I knew it was too good to just toss, not just for it’s artistic merits, but for what it revealed about our first months in Milpitas.

A few days ago I finally scanned it and saved it in Adah’s file on the computer, but I wondered how I would fit it into the blog, and figured I’d just have to post it and tell the tale of how ants continually invaded our kitchen counters and cabinets, sometimes even crawling across the full length of the sliding glass door from the family room and then into the kitchen. I figured the story would be about how we once found them swarming the Nutella jar, but gratefully they did not (fully) infiltrate. (I wiped out all the parts that ants touched around the opening. It’s fine, right?) And then, the story would conclude with us vanquishing the little pests and then peacefully living out our days in Milpitas.

That is, until yesterday.

I was just about to get in the shower when Maggie informed me there were ants in the kitchen. At first, I wasn’t too worried since I did still see the rare loner. However, down in the kitchen was that unmistakable little line of ants working its way across the counter. This time they had actually found the trash. So, instead of shampooing and sudsing, I started vacuuming and Windexing (works great on ants). Then I found one of our last two ant bait traps, set it up by the window where they were coming in, and resumed my get-ready-for-church routine.

This morning I discovered a new trail, coming in from the sliding glass door and across the back of the family room to the kitchen table. SIGH. They really couldn’t have waited one more week? We’re moving to our new house in Sunnyvale this Saturday. We’ll be totally out of this house by the next Saturday. Why, oh why, couldn’t those “antonians” wait?

P.S. It's a one-eyed vacume [sic] because it had two lights on the front, and one was burned out. That vacuum has since been replaced. The light was only one of many issues. The spray bottle refers to Windex, of course.