Blog Rating

So...due to the rather violent nature of my last post, parents are strongly cautioned:



This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
* dead (7x)
* kill (3x)
* crack (2x)
* death (1x)

Zombies, Ants, and War

Yes, this is my killer week of exams, papers, practices, guest lectures, and classes. So what do I do? Hahaha -- I decide to write a blog post. The first one of the semester. Oh, lovely time management, where hast thou flown?

But, yes. I want to rant about ants. I hate them. Especially the mutant-exoskeleton-zombie variety that we have here at The Strand. Normal tiny black or red squishy ants have nothing on these fellows. Our house's ants are giant, and black, and come back from the dead, and have NO squishy parts whatsoever, and enter the inside of our house by means of a crack in the paneling near the door of my closet.

We've deduced that they have a nest either under our house or in the walls. Maybe both. I wouldn't put it past them.

Normally they confine themselves to their nest, and to my closet floor. Every other day a lone adventurous soul trails his way across my carpet, and I promptly squish him (this is harder than it sounds). But most of the time I ignore them, and they ignore me; I seal and box the contents of my closet, and they hide in the walls and under the closet carpet, and we maintain toward one another a relative truce. But whenever I decide to do laundry, and clear out all the boxes from the closet in the process...aha, then all bets are off. They run like mad around the closet and boxes and floor and clothes, and I grab my roll of paper towels and squanch them one by one. (And, yes, "squanch" is the correct technical term. "Squishing" is too wimpy a description of the necessary killing action. Squashing+ quenching is more accurate).

Also a field of confrontation: the mail. Sneaky fellows -- if a box or package left by the mailman has any sort of rip or gap of any sort, they invade by the score. I opened one of my book orders from Amazon, and THIRTY of them started crawling out over my hands and bedspread. So I screamed and ran back outside with the package, and stomped as many of them as I could. Half of them looked dead. But looking dead is no guarantee.

Because you can't kill them. You think you've ground them down, and sqanched them into a pulpy oblivion under your foot or inbetween the folds of the paper towel. But you haven't. Unless you literally rip them in half in the process, they will twitch and buckle for a bit, then gingerly unfold themselves, and scuttle away. Sometimes you have to re-catch them three times before they're safely dead.

I've declared a jihad against them. I keep a kill tally above my door. I've murdered nearly twenty the the past three days.

And I've finally acquired TERRO.

But I haven't used it yet. It seems to damnedly unsportsmanlike. We've been through a lot together this past month, and it seems like springing modern chemical weaponry on a band of Hoplite warriors. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. (Metaphorically, that is. Though I suppose it tastes pretty bad physically, too).

Actually, I probably would have used it anyway by now. In a far less romantic consideration, I just don't envy myself a giant, crusty pile of dead ants spilling out of my closet.

But Lydia says I should just get over that mental aversion and go for it. Because they breed a lot faster than I can kill them one by one, and sooner or later they'll find the kitchen and the food... :-/

I am busy

I am back at Hillsdale, and I am very busy.

- music major
- history major
- accompaniment
- piano-violin-cello trio
- teaching piano lessons
- piano juries
- living off campus
- cooking
- grocery shopping
- keeping the house in order
- senior thesis
- joining SAI
- killing ants

Do I have time to put any stray thoughts into a publishable semblace of order? Um...no. Posts will be sporadic. Very.