RIDING DRAG / NO MERCY

I dislike boiled beets, don’t care for fish, detest okra and despise zucchini in any form. I have an aversion to cats in the house, dislike mean-spirited creatures both two and four legged, abhor snakes and loathe a liar. My one and only true hate is ants.

Ants are sneaky and appear out of nowhere. One day you place a lovely cake on the counter under glass and the next morning it will be covered with ants. Ants are un-repentant and never show remorse. They get into everything and just keep coming no matter what you do to get rid of them. So far this summer I have spent several hundred dollars on various sprays, bombs, sprinkles and liquid feeds with no tangible results. We created a border all the way around the house and in the yard all to no avail.

The liquid was particularly disappointing as I had used it before and it had worked quite well. This time the box read ‘new and improved’; that should have been a clue that it would not work this time. Not only did it not work, it attracted more ants than I have ever seen in my life. And you can think I’m crazy, but I swear it makes them hyper. The more they drank the more active they got. It was like they were downing an energy drink! They no longer trudged along like ants are prone to do, they didn’t even scurry as they will when disturbed. No, they ran, full blast like a huge herd of tiny race horses across the cabinet and down the walls.

We find them in the kitchen, the bathroom where they love to crawl all over our tooth-brushes and on the recliners in the living room. They even invaded my steam iron and were only discovered when they boiled up out of it when I turned on the iron to do a starched shirt.

I did not want to spray poison inside the house, particularly on or around my kitchen counter tops and cabinets. While researching ‘natural’ alternatives for killing ants on the internet I came across an article recommending the use of white vinegar. Eureka! White vinegar would not harm my pets or family. It could be used directly on the cabinets and sprayed from a pump bottle on the little demons themselves. For a week now I have been spraying. I even got so bold as to bait them with brown sugar in a plastic lid and spray them while they ate. Happily I sprayed and washed down my cabinets. (It supposedly discourages them from walking there and confuses their scenting for their trail back to the nest.) Spraying it directly on them it does a pretty good job of killing them. Other than that it has done little other than make my entire house smell like a huge barrel of pickles. And they just keep coming!

They have gotten so out of hand that I am taking any and all suggestions for getting rid of them. Methods showing no mercy are preferred as I have extreme revenge in mind. I had purchased one lovely orange scone that I intended to have with a cup of good Irish tea. I don’t have to tell you what made their way up two shelves and into a closed bread box where they attacked and devoured said scone, do I?

Beth suggested maple syrup and borax. After more research I found that apparently the borax helps to kill the ants and those in the nest they share with. It’s worth a try I suppose. It has to smell better than the vinegar, and how much more hyper can they get on maple syrup as opposed to the liquid ant feed or the brown sugar?

I would go on but I am off to the store to get the ingredients for the maple syrup and borax ant potion. I can’t believe I am going to the store at two o’clock in the morning to buy real maple syrup for a bunch of ants when it is never in the budget for us humans. Hey Beth, you didn’t say, do I have to make them pancakes too?


Contact Debra Coppinger Hill at ridingdrag.info@gmail.com
Become a fan of riding drag on Facebook and at http://ridingdrag.blogspot.com


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
RIDING DRAG with DEBRA COPPINGER HILL is featured each week at ALWAYS COWBOY where Debra is a Resident Western Poet. Join her and her Cowboy Friends for Cowboy Poetry, News & Events. http://alwayscowboy.net/debra_coppinger_hill_poetry.html