My wife asked me today if I have any rubbers. “You bet,” I replied. “Just let me one off and I’ll be right back.” So I hurried off to the bedroom, dug to the deepest, darkest corner of my nightstand, and found a lonely soldier there. But when I returned, pants around my knees and grinning ear to ear, she told me I was mistaken. “Put it away, dear,” she said. “You’re daughter has ants.”
Ants! So what? I could care less, but the women-folk are sure excited about it. I told her it’s just a few ants, what’s the big deal? But that’s all she and my daugher have talked about today. And since we’re headed out to San Diego later this week, my wife is making preparations. Hence the rubbers (turns out she only meant rainboots – it’s an old Minnesota term). She’s also scouring the garage right now for insecticides, toxic chemicals, cleaning supplies, protective clothing, goggles, gloves, even cold-weather gear and camping equipment in case we have to evacuate the house.
My daughter’s not much better. She’s frantic that she’ll wake in the morning to find her husband – or worse, the cat – consumed down to the bone by the killer ants. She’s even talking about bombing the house! That seems kind of extreme to me, to destroy your own home because of a few tiny insects. I tried to get her mother to talk some sense into her, and assure her that I’ll take care of the ants when I get there, but I couldn’t find her. My son said she just left for Home Depot, muttering something about a flamethrower.