ants in my pants that made me do the boogie dance

Before I knew there were REAL things in life to be scared about like taxes, and Craigslist killers, and global warming--I use to be afraid of ants. And now that I've had some pretty nasty life experiences to teach me the true meaning of fear......well, I'm still afraid of ants.



and moths.



but this is about the ants.



When I was in the 8th grade, my Earth Science teacher showed us some awful video about insects. I remember seeing a whole colony of ants descend on a monkey and carry it away.... while it was still alive!.... Tell me that wouldn't freak you out just a bit too!



And when I got a house of my own and got ants for the first time, I remember feeling violated somehow. I would lay awake worrying the ants might find my sweet-smelling toddler who was roughly the size of.....a monkey.





Anyway---this really is going somewhere!







Over a year ago, my Liam got an Ant Farm as a gift. I thought if I just put it at the top of his closet, he would forget about it. But he didn't. He asked about it at least once a month. So, I finally broke down and sent away for the ants (free with $4.50 shipping and handling!) in November. They don't ship them when it's cold apparently. It's spring now. The ants came. Liam was overjoyed.





I poured the sand in the tank and assembled it JUST like it's "escape-proof" instructions told me to. Then it was time. I said a prayer to whatever god wasn't laughing at me and pulled the ants out of the refrigerator.





What? Huh? Ants in the refrigerator?



Yeah---they came in a little sealed test tube and the directions said to put them in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to settle them down. I left them there for 30. Because the directions were also o'erfrought with warnings about how these ants BITE!!!



Liam and James looked on as I tried to gently "tip" the ants into the 1/4 inch opening. That's another thing the stupid directions said..... *gently tip*. Well, one ant went into the tank. And another. And another. And then a whole blob of cold ants came out. Too big to go through the opening. Instead they hit my counter--- and this is where the monkey-eating ant flashback came to me. The ants were immediately awakened and began to crawl all over my counter....and fast! *Explode* is a good word to describe what it looked like.



I started to panic---and shriek. I grabbed a cup and slapped it down over the main ant blob, then began pounding at the ants that were scurrying away. More shrieking. Then I realized I still had the test tube in my hand and there were ants crawling out of it and onto me. Oh my gosh!!---now there was really shrieking....and also hyperventilating! Liam and James, who had been laughing thinking Mommy was being funny, now realized that I was, in fact, in full freak out mode.



"Come on James!" Liam cried "let's run away outside!"



The two of them hightailed it out of there, with Liam calling one last wish to me: "run away from the ants Mom! RUN!".



I wanted to!



But someone had to take care of the ants. And I guess it had to be me.



I now had a counterful of ant carcases and about 30 angry ants under a cup. I tried shoving ice cubes under there to cool and calm them down again, but every time I lifted it up, more ants would take off, and more shrieking would erupt from me.



So, I did what every brave Mom does. Got out my vacuum cleaner. Buh-bye ants.



Well... except for those 4 that made it into the tank. The ones I have now grown strangely attached to......



Wanna help me name them?