Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Day of the Fire Ants.

Hello!!!  I am back!!!  Well at least I hope to be.  Things have been crazy, have a new job, but more about that later.  I wanted to post the story of my day.  There have been lots of days that merit a story, but this one is particularly special.  I'm calling it "Fire Ant Fiasco--The Tragedy of the Eaten Shorts".  Yep.  It's as good as it sounds.  You'll have to read to the end to find out about the "Eaten Shorts" part.

So I come home from work, and I'm in my nice new bathroom (a master bath, as I just bought my own house!!  More on that later....).  I feel a bite, look down......don't see anything.  Don't think anything of it.  Come back to my bathroom about 10 minutes later, feel about 3 other bites, still don't really think anything of it because again, don't see anything.  Sometimes my skin stings all of a sudden, usually related to an itch.  Well, I decide I'm going to go to Crossfit, so I'm rumaging through my laundry basket to find a clean shirt I want to wear, feel ANOTHER bite.  I finally look to the side of my basket.....And see this:

Trail of Ants (there are more than you can see)
There are at least 200 more underneith, and even more on the pink cami and shirt shown (which you can't see in the pic)

OK......so I can't handle bugs that bite. I'd rather be around bees.  Bees won't attack unless you swat and run at them.  Fire ants will bite you for no reason. Not sugar ants, or other little black ants....huge FIRE ANTS.  I know what you're thinking.....are you sure they are fire ants???  If you live in TX, then you know fire ants when you see them.  They are red with big black butts, and when they bite, it HURTS.  I have about 5 bites on my foot.

So I flip out and call my sister, because with my new job teaching my emotions are already spent, so now apparently I can't handle fire ants by myself.  My sister is awesome.  She comes up with a bug killer pump, fire ant powder for outside, and (get this) BABY POWDER.  Because you know, turns out ants HATE baby powder....go figure.

Live ants under all the clothes. FIRE ANTS. And baby powder.
We start by spraying the trail, then spraying a boundary so when we move the clothes, the fire ants can't go anywhere without dying.  Yep.  We committed lots of murder today.  I have no regrets.

We throw all the clothes that were covered in a brown bag and run it outside.  Then we run my laundry basket out too, because there are ants in it as well.  We finish spraying the ants, then covered them in baby powder.  It slows them down, they try to get away from it, and because they are now covered in spray, the powder sticks them.  Muhaha.

So then we did what any normal person would do when cleaning out fire ants out of all their clothes: beat them on the cement, lay them out, and spray baby powder on them like a crazy person...you know, so the remaining ants will run away. Because they hate baby powder. Muhaha.


We come back to the bathroom.  All the ants are now dead.  Hooray!!  (the bug guys are still coming tomorrow to finish the job around the rest of the house.  Oh, we also put ant powder on the outside of the house to kill the entry point. Did I mention how awesome my sister is?)

Imagine this over about 10 times this much floor.
Ok, so if you are still reading, then now you get to find out what happened to my shorts.  The ones in the pictures.  Well, here are some more pictures.  Look closely, you will see some little dark spots on them.






These are not actually spots.  THEY ARE LITTLE HOLES.  The freaking fire ants ATE holes in my nice workout shorts!!  Not exaggerating.  It'd be funny, if it weren't the fact that these were my really really nice shorts.  They are still wearable, they just have a bunch of tiny holes in them now.
Grr.

Lesson:  Don't leave sweaty workout clothes lying on your bathroom floor where prying ants searching for water happens upon them, because they will eat them.  Funny thing, earlier when I was watching them, I did notice that some were carrying little bits of stuff back to the hole.  I just thought it was stuff on my floor, which needed to be swept again. Yep, they were pieces of my shorts.