Do ants have cellphones?
Hi!
So I have cats. Too many but not quite enough to be regarded as crazy. At least, that’s what I hope. It started with two cute kittens, one unfortunately died when he was about 2 years old. I felt bad for the other one and decided she needed a new buddy. Well, was I wrong… from day one they did not like each other. Eleven years later, they still do not like each other. I guess it will never work out between them. Anyway, one day this skinny grey tabby showed up at my back door. It was skin and bones and walked funny. So I started feeding it. Needless to say, that was the day I found out that when you start feeding a stray, they are yours. When my best friend was here to visit me from Holland, she made the remark: “two, three, what’s the difference”. Thanks again, Cora. So now I had three cats. Then, a couple of years later, going to the vet with one for the yearly shot/empty your wallet visit I noticed this little black kitten in the waiting room. He was all by himself in this big cage, the left-over, not so pretty one that no one wanted. I looked at him and he looked at me and that was the end of it. Never had that happen to me before when I went to the vet and believe me, there were plenty of opportunities. So now there were four. And guess what? You’d think I would have learned from the fact that the first one did not like the new kitten… Although the last two do get along very well, must be the enormous difference in size, who knows.
Now this story leads to the question about ants and cell phones… Because of the cats there is cat food in the house at all times. My stray Wilhelmina, she gets very upset when she can see the bottom of the food bowl. Guess it has to do that she was a regular house cat before she ended up skinny and scared and lost in my back yard, and had no food for a while. She will not stop freaking out and looking and me as if I just declawed her again (this is how I found her by the way and why she walks funny, and it still gives me a wave of nausea when I think about how they do this) so there will be food in the bowl!!!! AT ALL TIMES !!!!!!!
Now it has rained a lot here in the South lately. Good for the water levels and my plants. Not so good for the mosquito and ant population. Or maybe they think good for them but not good for me. When I step in my backyard I look like PigPen with a cloud of something around me. In my case mosquitos… You’d think by now I would have had whatever disease they give you this year. The mosquitos, I can deal with them most of the time. The ants, that’s becoming an issue lately. One morning I got up and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Somehow the cats food bowl caught my attention and it was not because Wilhelmina thought it may be empty or near empty. No, it was moving inside…. Now as far as I know, cat food does not move unless it is a mouse or lizard that the cats catch outside of my house. I looked closer and saw a trail of little black ants coming and going. Crap. Ants in the house. Still better than palmetto bugs but not by much. But no harm done, I had the perfect non-toxic remedy for this. Cinnamon powder. You sprinkle it and low and behold, the colony makes a u-turn and marches right back from where they came from. Or so I thought. The next day, same thing. More cinnamon. Day after that, again, a row of black ants walking back and forth. Now what? Don’t want to use chemicals unless you’re a palmetto bug, then I really do not have a problem with using the Raid…..’cause those things are gross and freaky. So more cinnamon powder…
So now my kitchen floor has a layer of cinnamon powder on it. Still, the little boogers keep coming back…. So I get a dishrag and swipe a bunch of them up, and rinse out the dishrag. These ants have super powers because they hang on to the dish rag. Cold water, hot water, nothing seems to bother them. Trying to drown them in a cup? Doesn’t work. I bet they carry scuba equipment when entering houses, so they can survive being dunked or flushed. And how in the world do they know to come back? Do they have cellphones and text or call their little BFF ant-friends? Come to so-and-so’s house dude, she has loads of cat food just laying there for us. And about that, I thought for some reason ants (just the black ones, do not get me started on the red ones) were vegetarians…..
So more cinnamon. More ants. Even more cinnamon, now all under the kitchen window so I won! Nope…. I came home tonight from working an extra shift in the ER (ticket prices to Tanzania are not cheap) and THEY ARE BACK! I am convinced whoever survived my violent swiping up and drowning called ALL their ant buddies to come to my house. Because somehow they will find a way into the kitchen and to the cat food. So now the bowl moves. Not due to an ant-gathering inside, but by me. It now sits, temporarily, on top of the cabinet in the living room. Imagine poor Wilhelmina looking for her beloved food bowl….
So here I am. Going to bed soon since I am teaching a Bodypump class in the morning and have to be motivating and also do need a good work out myself. See what will be in the food bowl tomorrow morning =) Hopefully it will just be the Iams and laying very very still….
