Man vs. Creature

There are winged creatures on my ceiling.

At first shudder I thought we’d been invaded by roaches (didn’t see the wings immediately) but as I look, with poor eyesight, more intently…I have come to the conclusion that:

THEY’RE BACK.

We had them last year, resolutely, persistently, busily scurrying through our home in the mountains of NE Pennsylvania: Carpenter Ants. My husband tried everything – then researched it (lol) online and found what seemed to be, by consensus, the most effective cure.: POISON. So we made the trip (One hour long) to the second closest Walmart to us (he’d also checked online to see who had it available and at what stores) and picked up the touted substance…in three forms….(“MORE IS BETTER!” -Hey, he’s a man.) And Then he went to work spreading it all over our house to the degree that I was really glad I’m done bearing children.

Anyway, it worked. How could it not? Those ants were toast from the moment he’d logged on to his computer.

So given his industry and zeal last year, It’s a tad surprising that this year when I told him I’d seen a few…he didn’t leap right into action…Just muttered something about “gotta go back to H—dale to get some more of that stuff…”

And that was the last mention of it.

So now. they are here, molting and lying comatose as they recover from the effort on my ceiling. And you know what this means don’t you? It means that this is ONLY the beginning! Soon, very soon, there will be scads of them.

You see, the ants will win this war because they possess two qualities in abundance that, at least in this particular situation, my husband did not: They are hard workers, and they are persistent. I’m sure that our house has a reputation amongst ant colonies as a type of Auschwitz… The place where they were all but annihilated. And for them to come back this year demonstrates what? (NO, not stupidity) Tenacity. Persistence. You see the ants own this mountain…and we moved here with our tasty redwood house and they said…

“Dessert!!”

They will not give up.

WE will kill. They will return. And so forth. and so on.

Until our house is a rubble of chewed wood…and we are old and gray. (which is not so many years from now.)

The only way to overcome such persistence and such effort is to match it with GREATER persistence and GREATER effort.

………….And a healthy dose of foresight wouldn’t have hurt.

The point of all of this?

Why, to Plan Ahead. Work hard. and Be Persistent. Never say “die”–(unless you’re talking to carpenter ants.)

And YOU, too, will eventually have lots of tasty redwood to chew on…for many years to come.