I Pardon You

I've been under invasion by black ants this summer.  That's their color, anyways.  They're ants of color.  It's probably a statement on my kitchen and not a statement about the race of the ants.  I could have just as easily been under attack by white ants with scraggly beards, or Latino ants with teardrop tattoos under their eyes.  Probably not Asian ants, though.  Saturday is a school day in Asia - I believe.  Anyway, I just want to avoid any racially charged discussion about criminality in the ant population, and black vs white, blah, blah, blah.  It's not their fault that they have to resort to a life of crime.  It's something we can blame on our sick society.

My finger points at you, sick society!

I've been engaging in a slaughter of ants this summer.  My favorite trap has turned out to be a virtually empty can of Arizona iced tea.  They're attracted to the sugary drink and crawl (what else can ants do?  Hop?  Skip?  Stupid, but apparently necessary verb!) inside the can and meet their death.  Then I start filling the can with water and the ants go with it down the drain in the kitchen sink.  Where God drowns them to death.

God loves killing with water.  Ever read the Bible?  The Old Testament is filled with examples of God drowning people, sometimes for no good reason, other than they became a bit too slutty, or they became prideful.  By the way, those Olympic athletes are prime candidates for being killed by God (probably drowned - I presume (God is a one trick pony)) if they get too proud of their achievements.  I'd watch out.  That's why they point to the rafters and thank him.  "Please don't kill me.  I didn't mean to win.  It was an accident, I swear!"  Let's move on.

So, the ants meet their death with a torrent of water.  Yet some of them cling on to the inner workings of the garbage disposer and climb right back out, whereupon I send them back down the drain.  Sometimes they hold onto seemingly nothing and ride out the flood of water.

Today, this particular ant survived at least a half dozen counts of attempted murder.  I'd fill the sink halfway with water and let the deluge loose at once and it would crawl back out, time after time.  I turned on the disposer and it, miraculously, climbed out undamaged.  After murder attempt number 8, I let it climb onto a fork and released it outside.  I figured the ant's tenacity should be rewarded with clemency.

I pardon you.