Ant Goddess and the Sponge of Doom

There have always been ants in our apartment. When we first moved in, near-microscopic red ants scurried across the kitchen counter looking for dropped morsels of food. Winter came and they slightly larger black ants took over until they were eventually replaced by an even larger variety. Now, in the heat of the summer the small red ants are back and they have managed to find their way into every Tupperware barrier we set up against them. They've crawled into the refrigerator, into the rice, and invaded our stash of walnuts. If we don't scrub down the counters after making tea a hundred ants will suck on the residue where sugary water dripped over the side of the cup.

Over the last three years my wife has sealed the cracks in the walls with duct tape and poured eucalyptus oil into their hideouts. She has sprayed their dens with insecticide and sponged away countless ant carcasses from our counter tops. But the ants keep coming back. There are more now in our apartment than ever before. But something that happened over the weekend has made me question her fundamental relationship with this apartment's most numerous inhabitants.

After years of countless ant murders and countermeasures my wife went into the kitchen to find a herd gathered around a dollop of honey. She says that there were at least 50 of them in a circle "lapping up the nectar like antelopes at a waterhole". There is nothing in the world more pleasing to an ant than honey. Rather than her normal reaction of immediately scrubbing the honey and ants into the sink, she bent down over them for a better look. Sensing her gaze--and impending doom--the ants scattered in every direction. They abandoned their sugary stash and ran for the cracks where they came from.

This is unusual behavior. I have to emphasize that that ants didn't run after she had begun to squish their bodies into the counter top with her finger one at a time, or even after preparing a sponge in the sink. They ran after they saw her looking at them. This leads me to believe that after years of wiping out this same colony of ants, they are beginning to respect and fear my wife (as she is their appointed exterminator). She is their fickle and unruly goddess.

We see them as pests that pollute our food and occasionally bite us with their envenomed pincers. But from an ant's perspective we are giving them mixed signals. One day we fill the counters with tasty food droppings, glittering in honey and flower particles that feed and grow their colony. The next day she removes the offering and eliminates the workers that they send out to collect the food. She poisons their colony and wipes them from the face of the earth. She is both the source of their sustenance and the agent of their demise.

Back in the safety of their colony, the ants must gather around their queen and ask for her to interpret the various moods of my fickle wife. Is she an agent of good, or one of evil? Is there a way to appease her, or are they doomed to her random acts of kindness and murder? Right now, the counters are clean, and the ants are likely preforming elaborate rituals to honor my wife and forestall her wrath.

My wife is the ants' goddess. Right now she could be preparing the sponge of doom, or a cup of tea with honey.

photo by Binux on Flickr