September 12, 2006
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The Daily News
1 I have ants.2 That's like telling someone, "I have a cold!"
3 It isn't that people don't care, it's just that they can't be bothered
that you go in each day to an office that has trails of ants in rush-hour
traffic, hurrying ahead of you as though they were commuting across the
Bay Bridge.4 So I realized right away that the ants in my office weren't really a District
priority. It isn't like the Super is over there on the horn saying, "Get a crew out
there to that H-boy, stat! The boy has ANTS!"
5 Like anyone on a new job, I just want to figure things out quietly and start
getting in there and doing what it is I'm hired to do.6 So the first day on the job, I was writing post-it notes all over the place about
questions I had regarding the job and all. The first two days, the first post-its had bullets,
and each day the first bullet said "Ants". I tried using what was available, but...7 I used Windex, and they disappeared briefly, only to return an hour later with the red
completely removed from their eyes, and their eyes clear. They hopped right back on to
the ant freeway and started in again, only with much more clarity of vision.8 The annoying thing about it is if they stayed on the ant freeway, it wouldn't have been so bad.
9 But the deal is that there is always some misdirected ant who has wandered off on a social trail and starts doing weight-lifting moves on his hind legs, right next to the top of my hand, which suddenly has some OTHER ant on it, sniffing around like a drunk on New Year's.
10 And then we have the attackers, the ones who just do the Kamikaze run directly at you. Those are what I call the thumb ants, because they get pretty much crunched by my thumb. They usually get swept to the floor, where they just disappear somewhere, maybe the same place that boogers and toenails go when you can no longer find them.
11 Can we delete everything I just wrote for the last 25 words?
12 Ah, just kidding.
13 The funny thing about ants is that NOBODY seems to know how to get rid of them, yet EVERYBODY has their old mama's recipe.
14 I never believe in any of those old mama recipes. I believe in a HUGE can of RAID!
15 So I bought a few of those little traps that you always have lying around your house, but backed it with a cop's can of RAID! I laid the traps, and the ants just crawled all over it like it was a dead carcass. It said to put them in all corners and "anywhere ants might hide". Yeah, like...everywhere?16 Well I immediately knew I wasn't going to squeeze into any corners anywhere on this planet or on the next, so I just looked for their trail.
17 It tripled around the top of the room, went out the door, across the quad, and I have to guess, all the way to New Zealand, where they evidently looped around and came back home.
18 Finally, on the fourth day, I got into a WWI biplane, put on the leather jacket and goggles, and flew all about, finding holes in the ceiling and ant freeways. I bombed the freeways, soaked entire ant lanes, and then closed all the windows for the night so they would suffocate in PIZIN'!
19 The next day I looked and saw ant carcasses hanging everywhere like dark metal sculptures. Some looked as though they were in the middle of a song. "I gotta be MEEEEEE, I GOTTA BE MEEEEEE!" while some looked as though they had been frozen for thousands of years.
20 One way or another, I won. They were wiped out, clinging to the walls and tables. But so were about eight students, all of whom showed up with gas masks and plastic gloves. Some wore quarantine space suits. I got the hint, opened the windows, and was back to square one.
21 So I asked around. How do you get rid of ants? They were back, in droves, scurrying this way ant that, climbing into my lunch, over my hand, upon my cheek, upon my word!
I put out word, but it seemed they were intent on taking over the universe! And there was seemingly no answer!!!!
22 The answers were all what I call "mama recipes". Those are the answers that somebody's mama told them, and which ALWAYS work, because mamas just ain't wrong, i.e. "Cinnamon, man. My friend works at fill-in-the-blank and they were INFESTED, and so they just sprinkled a little cinnamon everywhere, and you wouldn't even know there ever WERE ants."23 "That chalk stuff you get in Vietnamese stores. You just draw a line, and they NEVER come back." Well, word on the street is that if you use THAT stuff, you can get carted off to jail for attempted genocide. The campus goat ate some last week, grew HUGE horns, and proceeded to collapse. Peoples arms fell off, I've heard tell...
24 Hey, the best mama recipe came from the Athletic Director. I asked him how to get rid of ants.
25 "DDT and acid." he laughed. I'm not quite sure what that meant, but it didn't sound environmentally safe. He smiled a knowing smile, so it MUST work well in the gym.
26 A dancer came up with this one: "Catnip!" = )
27 My daughter Nicole finally brought me some mystical potion, and with a sly smile said, "Dad, search no more! They crawl into these little babies, and then take the poison back to their homes, and it is OVER. You won't have any ants. It worked in my apartment; it'll work anywhere man!"
28 I believe her. She's my daughter. I believe her.
29 So.
30 I still like Herb's idea. DDT and acid. You could put it in a bong and have the ants smoke it.
31 Just think. Right in the midst of a hooka of acid, the ant straightens up, stiffens, his eyes pop out, and he goes over. I gotta love it. Peace, as they say, comes at quite a price.
32 Have a great day.
33 Peace.
34 That's ants.
~H~
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