Size Doesn't Matter

I'm fighting a daily battle for survival against an unstoppable opponent. No matter what I try, no matter how sure I am of success, the victory is always short-lived -- sometimes an entire day, sometimes only five or ten minutes.

Ants.

There are worse things that could happen. Just last week I watched a show about a family in South Africa that discovered a next of black mambas in their yard, so I suppose I should count myself lucky that we're only talking about ants.

Plus, these are just normal, everyday household ants, nothing like you'd see on the Discovery Channel. But even so, they've taken over my life.

Take today, for instance. We woke at about seven a.m. to discover that we were under attack on two separate fronts. One colony was invading from between the floorboards in Alison's room, snaking out her door, through the hall, across the living room, up one leg of the kitchen table, only to find not much of anything waiting for them. In the kitchen there was another trail, and this one pissed me off like you wouldn't believe.

For the past week this particular colony had been trying my patience by staging repeated attacks on this same location. First, they had exploited a break in the seal of a window and descended upon a Starbucks cookie that had been left out on the counter. The next day they found a crack in a cupboard, then marched upon a half-full CapriSun sitting in the sink.

I had no ant spray, so I knew they'd just keep coming and coming, like waves breaking on a distant shore, so I came up with a plan. I decided to seal up the crack with cellophane tape. Yes, an admittedly amateurish solution, but since most of the work I do around the house is decidedly amateurish, it seemed to make sense.

Predictably, it didn't work. The tape held for about ten minutes, and the parade continued. So I went outside to the garage and found a tub of patching compound that I had never seen before and brought it inside to patch up the hole. Sure, I had to admit that the ants would probably come back, but at least they'd have to find another way in. I took comfort in this small victory. For a time.

Until this morning. When I walked into the kitchen at seven a.m. and saw the trail of ants traipsing back and forth across the counter, I assumed they must have found another entrance. They hadn't. There in the middle of my beautiful patch job, there was a small ant-shaped hole. They appeared to be laughing as they walked in and out, in and out, in and out, all of them on their way to an apparently irresistable sponge sitting in the bottom of the sink.

The children, meanwhile, are amused by the whole thing. Alison has become my chief scout, alerting me to each new incursion, even checking the veracity of Henry's discoveries. A typical exchange from this afternoon:

Henry: There ants in my room!
Alison: Daddy, he doesn't really have ants.
Me: Are you sure?
Alison: Well, he does, but not like the ants in my room. His aren't even walking in a line.

But I have to admit that I've developed more than a little respect for my adversaries. If they were a foot long, afterall, they'd surely rule the world. And even as small as they are, they're ruling my world. I've put another, thicker coat of compound on the crack in the cupboard, and we bought some new ant spray the other day, but I know I'll never win.

The truth of it, though, is that ten years from now, when I'm trying to stem the invasion of sixteen-year-old boys with nothing more than paper towels and patching compound, I'll look back on these daily skirmishes and smile. Probably.