The Fickle Heart - A Tragic Love Story

I have had a serious phobia of ants for as long as I can remember.  When we moved to the Grand Junction area, I had to face my fears head on, daily.  I'm fairly certain that our house was built upon what might possibly be the largest most insidious ant-hill in the whole world.  We had a large variety of ants, too.  There were some that were so tiny they couldn't be seen without looking very very closely.  I called those ones butter ants, because if there was a dab of butter on the counter they would line up all the way around the outer edge of the butter spot, and at first glance they appeared to just be a grease ring around the butter, but upon closer inspection you could see that they were moving.

I learned a few things about ants while I lived there.  For example, they they like dog food but not cat food.  They loooove peanut butter, but honey, not so much.  They seem to love a freshly mopped floor.  If left to their own devices, they can clean up copious amounts of peanut butter in about two weeks.  I know this, because one time the children smeared copious amounts of peanut butter all over the master bathroom.  When I went to clean up I found that the ants had already arrived.

 I was so traumatized by the swarming, undulating, writhing black river of ants traveling back and forth from the vent in the floor to the counter and back that I just slammed the door and decided Josh would have to take care of it when he got home and I used the kids bathroom instead.  When Josh returned home I sent him to deal with it and miraculously, the ants and the peanut butter were all gone.

The most horrific thing I discovered about ants by far, however, was that my daughter loved them.  She could sit for hours playing with her little ant friends.  My typical method of dealing with ants was to suck them up in the vacuum hose.  When I would do this Alexandra would rush around trying to save as many as possible screaming "NO!  Don't kill my friends!"  One time after sucking a pile of ants to their doom I heard her comforting a survivor, "I'm so sorry baby ant.  Your mother is in the vacuum.  My mommy killed her, but I will take care of you now."

Moving back to Arvada was such a relief.  I can now pick up the floor with my hands instead of tongs, it's so much quicker this way!  We occasionally get a few ants in the sun room.  Prior to the Grand Junction experience, I would have been paralyzed with fear, but I guess you could say that my condition has improved somewhat.  Alexandra, of course, was delighted to find new "friends".  I told her she could play with them in the sun room or outside, but if they come in the house they are getting squashed.  She's been known to tell people that her friends are not allowed in the house because her mommy will kill them.  I always rush in to explain that she's talking about ants, and of course their daughter could come over to play without mortal fear.

A couple of things my daughter has told me about ants:

"When my ant friend crawls on my arm it tickles and it makes my heart pump with love and joy."

"Mommy, my ant friend just spelled out a letter to me on my arm!  It said that it loved me so much and would even love me when I'm dead!"

*sigh*  That's nice dear.

She has passed along her love for ants to her very impressionable little brothers.  They build little houses for them in the back yard and take turns standing guard to protect them from their mean older brothers who will kill them without mercy.  They cry when one runs away.

Until last week... 

They caught a caterpillar last week and put it in an open jar with some leaves.  They were planning on keeping it to see it make a cocoon and become a butterfly.  Of course I made them keep it outside.  The next day Alexandra went to check on the caterpillar and discovered that it was dead and covered in ants.  She was devastated.

She called the twins out to show them the travesty and declared "Ants are NOT our friends any more.  We HATE them!  They KILLED Snow White!"  The three of them proceeded to grab their shoes and went out back to perpetrate a brutal ant massacre filled with vengeance.  For about an hour I could hear them: *WHACK WHACK WHACK*  "Die ants!" *WHACK* "We hate you!" *WHACK*  "Kill them all!" *WHACK*  "How DARE you kill Snow White!"  *WHACK*

I had mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, maybe I should have explained to them more about nature and the ecosystem, and it not being the ants' fault they were just doing what was natural to them, and perhaps they hadn't even killed the caterpillar, perhaps they found it dead and were simply cleaning it up.  On the other hand, I really hate ants. 

The downside, is now the twins freak out whenever they come across an ant outside.  Despite totally relating to their reaction, the complete 180 is a little hard to take seriously.  I tell them that they are silly and of course they aren't scared of ants.  They tell me quite sternly, "Ants scary, ants kill Snow White."  So now I have to carry them past any ants in the driveway getting in and out of the car.

Freaking ants.  One way or another they are always causing me trouble.