March 14 - Lisa's Musings (about little black ants) and Every Day Life

It's that time of year again.

Sure, Daylight Savings Time began this morning, the NCAA basketball brackets have been decided and it's tax season.

But at my house, that time of year is the annual emergence of the little black ants.

They appear each year when the weather breaks and begin their march across my kitchen counters.

I think they have a nest somewhere under the house and they get into it through my dishwasher. The large group waits outside, or something, and sends out scout ants before the whole extended family arrives.

A lot of the first wave never makes it back to the Mother Ship or Mother Ant Hill or wherever they are coming from.

But each year, when the winter weather breaks, the march of the little black ants begins and lasts about a week.

I find them rather annoying, really.

Because they are bugs, and second, because they are crawling around in my house, especially when there's plenty of perfectly nice space outside where they can roam and play.

So I'm kinda offended when they decide to invade MY house. There's acres of property here, so why the yearly invasion of my house?

And I admit, I squish a LOT of them, because I don't want to spray with the dogs in the house.

But they just keep coming and coming.

And coming.

So, I have to make sure there aren't any dishes anywhere -- but in the dishwasher -- and all food has to be hidden from plain (and ant) sight.

They really are little pests, and it's really icky thinking about them crawling on my counters, so I do a lot of counter cleaning.

Like I have time for this.

It's one thing to get up once an hour and hunt them down to squish them, it's quite another to be getting the cleaning products out and actually repeatedly cleaning.

But, I've needed a new dishwasher for a LONG time. So maybe this is the year.

In fact, my new special dishes are washed by hand because I don't want the backs of them to be stained by the exposed metal in the dishwasher drawers, or whatever they're called. And as more and more metal is exposed, the worse it gets.

I called to get a price to replace the innards, but it turns out replacement parts are almost as expensive as buying a new appliance.

Plus, there's the new "clunker appliance" rebate calling to me, in addition to coupons from Heydlauff's, my local appliance and electronics store.

So perhaps a new dishwasher is what it'll take to curb the annual ant tide.

But I'm almost embarrassed to have someone come here -- until they are gone, so it would be another year to see if this turns away a new generation of little black ants that greet me every spring.

For some it's the first robin sighting that heralds spring; for me, it's the darn little black ants.