The ants in my kitchen

August 5, 2014
             Day 97

I really wish the title of this reflection was a euphemism for something funny or interesting.  Unfortunately, it's just a sad fact of my life.  There are ants in my kitchen, and I've yet to wipe out their entire population through mass antocide.

At first there were just a few.  Scavengers perhaps?  You know, the ones sent ahead to see what kind of food my kitchen might offer?  Perhaps these first few knew there was a good chance they wouldn't return from their mission, but they offered up their lives for the colony.  And while I can applaud that level of sacrifice, it has always been my opinion that ants inside my house should be slaughtered en masse, and smushed completely and immediately upon entry.

The part I don't get is, they keep coming in from all manner of cracks I don't know about (but later seal), and they keep getting killed...yet they keep coming back.  No matter how many of their fallen comrades they see crushed on the battlefield, or doused in a pool of Windex or household cleaner, they still keep invading.  It's as if there's an ant king or queen who sends these creatures into battle, knowing full well that most if not all of them will be killed, and then when they don't return, another hundred are sent right in afterwards.

Are they still not realizing I'm going to kill them?  Do they still not see how much certain torture and death awaits them once they run across my kitchen counter? Are they truly so starved for the tiniest remnant of human food that thousands of them are willing to kamikaze their way into my home?

No.  It doesn't seem like they care at all.  Instead, they see the dead bodies all over the place, and they see no natural force has caused this, but rather that some human with a demented world vision has slaughtered them all, and in the face of this, they keep searching for food in my kitchen anyway! 

There's a theory I've heard that if you provide an offering to the ant gods outside the house somewhere, they'll respect your space inside...but I don't buy it. 

For me, the only conclusion I see ahead of me is complete annihilation of the species.  I haven't been keeping track, of course, but I'd be willing to wager I've now murdered tens of thousands of these creatures.  And like any good mass murderer worth his title, I've long since turned off any emotional attachment.  These are not living creatures I'm killing.  They're things.  They're things in my kitchen that weren't invited.  And they must be destroyed.

So if in some future life I am held accountable for my antocide, I can only pray I am not judged too harshly.  For if I find myself in some spiritual courtroom one day, and an ant god is pointing at me in accusation, I'll just throw up my hands in disgust and scream out, "But they invaded my fucking house, you crazy fucking ant god!!!  DON'T YOU SEE I had no other choice?!?!" 

And then?  Well...  And then I'll probably just crush the ant god, too.