Ants in my pants

Mostly, I’m a reasonable sort of guy. Hardly a ruthless mass murderer at all, so if they’d just been content to leave an occasional pile of sand on my driveway, I could’ve turned a blind eye. But then they violated my geranium pot. War followed.

Ants. They’re like uninvited relatives from interstate. If you don’t pour boiling water on them straight away, they come back with more family members and snack on your Tim Tams.

Usually, ants don’t annoy me. If I see a lone one in my house, I’ll take the time to relocate him outside unharmed. That makes me feel good because God, karma and my wife, will notice I’ve saved a life and elevate me closer to sainthood. But if I see a whole bunch milling around in my pantry, I’ll kill them, because that’s how karma works. These harmless creatures obviously did something terrible in a previous life, so I’m merely balancing out the injustice of the universe.

But some of these ants are mean. They’ve grown up in the rough part of the colony and learnt to laugh in the face of death and destruction. They’re tiny, brown and have clearly undertaken extensive SAS training.

Each morning I see their defiant sand piles outside on my pavers. The battle-hardened survivors establish these forward attack camps following my Antex offensive the day before. These ants won’t stop, even in the face of death.

While they temporarily vanish during wet weather (much like the postman and digital TV), the rest of the time they relentlessly advance towards my house. And, on most days, they succeed in getting in. I’ve no idea how.

I’ve tried tracing their trails back from the maple syrup blob party behind my toaster, but it leads me nowhere. The trail either disappears under the sink, or leads to another blob of something that’s died in a window track.

I’ve lined the perimeter of my house with killer surface spray, scattered minefields of anti-ant granules around their likely entrance points, and poured toxic dust directly down their nest holes. They still don’t get the message. For highly intelligent, socially complex creatures, they’re rubbish at taking a hint.

To replace their deceased, they simply fly in reinforcements. Winged ants. I’ve watched a squadron descend onto my lawn. After being greeted by a ground crew of soldier ants, they are hurried off to a welcome summit being hosted under my geranium pot.

I lifted the pot for a peek. There were squillions of them forming a writhing mass of legs, eggs, wings and queens. It was a hedonistic display of ant supremacy in which they openly flaunted their abundance and exoskeleton physique.

It was disgusting and fascinating all at the same time. Still, it was my universal karmic duty to show them who wore the pants without ants around here, so I authorised their demise. I brought out my weapon of mist destruction.