Antsy

I'm not crazy about admitting this, and you'd be justified in thinking there's something crazy here. I just spent a hour spackling the perimeter of an electrical outlet plate with green Japanese horse radish aka wasabi. It took an hour because the paste kept crumbling and falling away and was probably too thin to begin with. I used a soft edged baby spoon as a tool because that seemed to hold the paste more easily. ( I hope I remember to dispose of the excess paste plus spoon before any real babies drop in. Unlikely, but you never know around here.) And why was I doing this in the first place? Because I've run out of Mongolian hot chili oil, the one I blend into a paste with Hungarian hot paprika to paint around areas where the seasonal ant invasions occur. It's wintery cold and the wee buggers are on the move.

So today I'm down to wasabi. It looks as if a baby (the one that doesn't live here but might have visited) spewed pureed peas over the blender plug which seems to be the current immigration check point to the kitchen counter. And I'm happy to report that wasabi is every bit as effective an ant deterrent as the Mongolian/Hungarian formula which is actually a little expensive and leaves a slight orange tinge to the grout, making extra work in the cleanup. As it is, I'm busy enough with the soapy sponge wipe-up of the 6 ant-wide trail running across the sink and down the disposal. I'm trying to think what tender morsel might have survived the ferocious maw of the disposal's latest feeding frenzy that would be attractive enough to rally such an army. It was supremely satisfying as well as efficient to activate the spray option on the detachable faucet head and swirl away a few hundred bugs down a homemade ant sized version of a hot water slide.

I'm doing my best to be organic and humane about their repatriation as I like to think of it, much preferring aversion to outright murder, except for the soapy sponge part. I also apologize to them and ask their little ant spirits' forgiveness for my actions. I'm not sure this has been entirely effective however as I recently discovered an ant had actually crawled into my pyjamas and was testing the citrus scented bodywash residue I must have overlooked in my toilette activities earlier. Well that was his excuse, but I knew he was really after revenge. It gave me no pleasure to retrieve a tiny creature from a private body part of mine, roll it between my thumb and forefinger and wonder if I was merely maiming it by crushing its legs or if it was actually dead. I enshrouded the remains in a tissue, wet it under the faucet and tossed it in the trash. Elaborate but somehow the ritual relieved my guilt.

I guess it's only a matter of time before the colony that is surely established at the very core of the kitchen's inner workings decides to either move out or launch another assault through a different electrical outlet. With my luck it'll be the one in the bedroom as they go after the apple scented lotion on my nightstand. Well I'm ready for 'em. Got my dish of water to put the bottle of lotion in and then we'll see who's boss ! But last year this didn't work so well when I tried the moat method on a jar of honey, which ended up in the fridge. We found thousands of shriveled carcasses in the freezer the next morning and callously laughed our asses off. But it was after all a non-toxic death, come on.

PS. If your baby likes pureed peas, please don't visit us during ant season, even if you've noticed a bowl and baby spoon smeared with green stuff on our kitchen counter: it is not an invitation.