KADDI VS. ANTS: The war for our survival

We came home from a daily excursion to discover some new friends waiting for us in the kitchen. A line of ants streaming out of the wall, across the floor and up into the garbage can. We take the garbage out every day, but apparently that's not often enough. Anytime there is anything on the counter, floor, or in the garbage can (particularly anything with sugar) you can be sure the ants will find it. Fortunately we caught this trail of ants before it turned into a superhighway. They've been know to carry away entire boxes of food.


As you might imagine., Kaddi was quite distraught by this not-unexpected development. In an effort to comfort her I presented three options which I thought could solve our ant problem long term:

1) Negotiate a truce with their leader, turning a potential enemy into our subterranean ally.

2) Shrink one of the kids down to the size of an ant. They could then infiltrate the colony and take it down from the inside.

3) Keep all our garbage in the refrigerator.

Despite these very reasonable solutions, Kaddi chose to break off all talks and resort to thermo-nuclear warfare instead. (When will we as a society learn that war is not the answer?) Three minutes later each of these ants was swimming in a tiny pool windex, their bodies twitching and nervous systems short-circuiting. Poor fellows, they were just fulfilling the measure of their creation, and we killed them for it. Needless to say, this latest episode has not increased Kaddi's enjoyment of the Land of Smiles. Because we know one thing's for certain. The ants will be back...

...and we'll be ready for them.