To Every Thing There Is a Season

OK, look—I am not complaining about this thing I'm going to point out here, not exactly, anyway. I understand that life is full of relatively minor inconveniences, OK? I'm fine with that. It's more like pointing out an injustice, or maybe even a violation of the rules of nature. OK? I'm just saying.

So anyway, it was supposed to snow a couple of nights ago. We were supposed to get an inch or so. I was actually kind of looking forward to it, the general transformation, the pristine uniformity, all that. It would be a change from plain old brown chilly March, at any rate. But we didn't get snow. But we could have, and that's the point, because a week or so ago the lady two doors down said she had ants.

Ants! I have suffered greatly (well, been annoyed, at any rate) by ants since I've lived here. There's something about the soil that's antogenic. I have sprayed so much insecticide, of every type, into every spot they appear, that the next step is to detach the house from its foundation and submerge the damn thing in a giant vat of the stuff, the way you would dip a flea-infested dog. In the summer I have to put the cat's food bowl in a larger dish filled with water—an ant moat, if you will—to keep them from appropriating it. I watch them stroll with a certain proprietary satisfaction over my office desk. They seem to mock my pretensions to civilization. "Tap on your little computer, mammal," they say, laughing tiny little laughs, "you might as well be living in a Stone Age village. We own your kitchen (I have to put the sugar in a sealed bag), we own your desk, and soon, when we figure out how to build boats, we'll own your cat food too. And the day will come when you die—probably of insecticide-hastened cancer—and they'll put you in the ground and we'll own you too. Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!"

I watch the ants stroll across the desk and I reach for a sticky note and press the sticky part on the ant. I watch the ant struggle for a while—they're strong for their size, but they're not strong enough to unstick themselves—and then I fold the note over the ant and put it in the trash. I do this wearily, with no vengeful glee. There are lots of ants where that one came from.

So anyway, when this woman said the ants had come back my heart sank. And here's the thing that really seems wrong—snow and ants simultaneously. I just don't want to come in from the snow, kick the slush off my boots, take off my coat and hat and gloves and muffler, and find ants all over the kitchen counter. It's unacceptable. It's too much. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Oh, and guess what? I just now saw one. (It was immediately confined to a sticky note and put in the wastebasket, where it may well be contemplating the difference between an inconvenience and an actual problem.) It's March 23, 42 degress F. outside, 30 tonight. And the ants are here. It's going to be a long damn summer, I'll tell you that.