Infestation!

If you’re someone whose skin crawls easily, you may want to look for another blog post to read. (Try Kami’s, or Taylor Mali’s or this one, that's got lots of great paintings of buildings in New York City).

Those of you familiar with this blog, or with the story itself, will know that when I was living in New York, cockroaches were a staple. (I don’t mean of my diet; I tried my best to stay away from eating them, but who knows? They’re sneaky.)

What I mean is that they were a part of my everyday reality, just as they were for my eight million brethren there. You did your best to kill the pests, but sometimes you just had to learn to peacefully coexist. If you haven’t had much experience with cockroaches, you should at least be aware that they’re often appreciated for their toughness and resilience.

Sure, if you are quick enough to put your foot down on top of one or more of them, or if you wield a mean rolled-up newspaper, the roaches in question will be dead. But they learn from the death of their compatriots, and they find ways to avoid repeating their missteps. They develop immunity to sprays, and even eventually appear to “learn” not to check into hotels from which they cannot check out. The cliche is that they will be here on the planet AFTER the nuclear war has been lost and every human is dead, and honestly, I wouldn't put it past the little buggers.

I haven’t seen one roach since moving to Texas. I’ve seen lots of beetles that look like they could be distant cousins, but no roaches. And I have seen water bugs. None of those super-fast, super creepy little buggers that scatter when the lights go on.

What we do have plenty of here, however, is ants. There are two kinds I deal with at home – there is the outdoor kind that make the big hills as they burrow, and they’re known as Fire Ants. Their bite hurts like the dickens. Then there are the indoor ones; I’m not certain, but I think they’re called Ghost Ants. They are tiny and numerous and walk in neat, militaristic single-file lines all over the house.

This morning – look away crawly-skinned – I pulled a packet of Pop Tarts out of the box. Before I returned the box to the pantry, I happened to look inside it, and thought I saw some movement on the bottom. (Yes, you know where this story is going, don’t you? So clever you are.) The bottom of the box was literally crawling. I poured water into it and flushed the ants down the drain in the kitchen sink. (Just a few minutes earlier I had noticed one crawling amongst my arm hairs while I was working out in my garage.)

It occurred to me, though a silly thought, for sure, that I should check each individual Pop Tart before putting them in my toaster, and wouldn’t you know it? There they were, crawling around on the glazed surface of my (now their) Pop Tart. Apparently, even though it looks like space-age Kevlar, the bags are actually only made of flimsy material, and each individual ant had made, and crawled through, tiny perforations in the foil.

Glad I caught it, before putting them in the toaster.

Sorry, however, not to have done it yesterday.

I could, I suppose, respond with dry heaves. Instead, I’ve decided to think of it like this: Ah, well: Some extra protein… and at no EXTRA CHARGE!