Current mood: Itchy
So I was a little sad when I realized that my roommate was too sick to take care of the ant colony that’s built a trail through my room. I didn’t have time to set the environmentally friendly trap our landlord gave us before I left for Chicago, but now that I’m back a week later... I have a SERIOUS ant problem. Or did rather. They were in my desk, my clothes, my bed, my dresser. I even found some in my clothes a few hours after I had left the apartment. It was horrifying, especially since, well, I hate bugs (especially after living with extra "roommates" in Boston, by which I mean giant roaches). However, unlike my old apartment in Boston, I do not live in any form of urban squalor. The apartment is spacious and has been decorated by the landlord (although the sea foam green of my bedroom was a bit difficult to work with in terms of interior decorating). The presence of ants are a mystery to me as I haven’t resided here long enough to collect signs of neglect. I have no idea what they could consume as I don’t keep anything edible in my bedroom (living next to the kitchen and such).
While in Boston I would tolerate the rat that lived under my sink and to some extent the mice that climbed into our pantry, the idea of co-habitation with insects curls my lip and furrows my brows with disgust. With the larger animals it was a matter of outsmarting them through strategic placing of large objects (bleach bottles in front of the entrance of the rat hole) and food (removing any access to food storage shelves). It’s not that ants are smarter. It’s their sheer numbers and the ability to climb walls (which explains how they got onto my bed).
I spent the first day back crushing them with my bare hands and became desensitized to the carnage of pressing something to death. Eventually realizing that I couldn’t squish the constant flow of a hoarde that lived within my walls, I set up the trap and came back 3 hours later to find a gut-turning swarm of them around the jar of boric acid-laced sugar-covered cotton balls (for those of you who are curious, it’s 3 tsp boric acid, 1 cup sugar, and 3 cups of water poured into a small jar halfway filled with cotton until the cotton is saturated). I left and celebrated Jess’ acceptance into Berkeley’s Law School and drove her to airport at 4 friggin am. I got back at 8am and found a few sluggish-looking ants wandering around the jar... and now 24 hours later, they’re gone.
It’s glorious, but yet somehow I feel a little remorse for the destruction of their, well, entire society. I mean I madly hoped that they would take the sugar back to infect the queen, following their biological imperative to serve their maker. And it worked, or so it appears. But, I feel a little bit of guilt. Their only fault was building a road through my sleeping quarters, and while there was no possibility of co-existence, lest I continue to pick ants out of my hoodie and shoes for the remainder of my lease, I still feel a tinge of sadness for having destroyed their simple lives.
Then again, I enjoy human company with its hygiene standards and would prefer not to explain why I have small creatures living on/with me. Somehow, my feelings of guilt over the ants are not overwhelming enough to propel me to tolerate awkward explanations and potential ostracization by friends and family.
Although I have not seen them for hours, I feel itchy and paranoid. I suppose I’ll just have to live with the guilt of being a mass murderer.
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