I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY - TINY BUT DEFEATING ME.Byline: Dale D. Anderson Local View I moved from Iowa to San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. in 1992. And I'll never forget the day I was in the kitchen of our new apartment when I saw a black spot on our cabinet. All at once, it started to move. Then another appeared, and another, and then four or five more spots moved all over the counter. This is the day I was introduced to honey ants (Zool.) a small ant (Myrmecocystus melliger), found in the Southwestern United States, and in Mexico, living in subterranean formicares. There are larger and smaller ordinary workers, and others, which serve as receptacles or cells for the storage of honey, . My courageous wife took a paper towel and killed them all. A few years later we moved up to Mission Hills, in the northern San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. . Soon I realized that I had moved into the capital of the honey ant. I saw one on the kitchen counter. Then I saw a dozen ants attacking a crumb. I saw a stream of ants crawling on the floor. I knew I was in a battle, so I brought up the artillery artillery, originally meant any large weaponry (including such ancient engines of war as catapults and battering rams) or war material, but later applied only to heavy firearms as opposed to small arms. and vacuumed hundreds - or maybe even thousands - of ants. But still, there were too many of them. So we had snipers out all the time killing them with a finger, and our automatic weapon, a paper towel. But still, there were too many of them. They quickly overran o·ver·ran v. Past tense of overrun. our pantry and our kitchen cupboards, so our food and dishes had to retreat into the safety of boxes and clothes baskets. We knew we were in trouble, so we decided to use chemical warfare chemical warfare, employment in war of incendiaries, poison gases, and other chemical substances. Ancient armies attacking or defending fortified cities threw burning oil and fireballs. A primitive type of flamethrower was employed as early as the 5th cent. B.C. . I bought several cans of spray. But still, there were too many of them. Then I saw an advertisement for Toro Toro may refer to:
Then a smile started forming on my face, and it got bigger and bigger until I used some Toro. I first put it in the cupboard. Later in the day, when I checked, there was an army of ants attacking the Toro. I killed their nest. I killed them all. They deserved it. But still, there were too many of them. They kept coming. I studied the ants and found that they were coming in from the outside, so I went out searching for the nests. I discovered a nest. It looked like somebody dumped about six handfuls of fine dirt in a pile and pushed a pencil in the middle of it. I poured Toro down over that hole and over every other hole I could find. But still, there were too many of them. We finally went modern and bought machines that you hang on the wall, and they keep the ants away. This high-tech warfare for ants worked rather well. We would find a few scouts here and there, but it kept the army away. Eventually, our landlord sold the house we were renting, and we found a house in Reseda, on the opposite side of the Valley. Soon after we moved in, we found ants once again crawling on the counter. Then I briefly moved to Yreka, Calif., near the Oregon border. And they were crawling all over the kitchen counter there, too! We need to call out the Marines, the Army, the Navy and the National Guard because they are going to overrun 1. overrun - A frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, especially in serial line communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if a silo can hold only two characters and the machine takes us! If you think I am getting a little carried away by ants, I ask: What is crawling on your kitchen counter?'' |
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