2002-08-17 at 9:11 p.m.
It took me twenty minutes to make myself the cup of tea I am currently drinking. Why is that, you ask?
The ants have invaded the kettle again.
Weeks will pass without a single ant going near it, and then one day I'll look down into my cup and see hundreds of tiny little boiled ant corpses floating on top of my tea. What force causes them to venture into the watery unknown? Well, as far as I know, ants don't drink, so your guess is as good as mine. Maybe it's the same force that causes whales to beach themselves, birds to fly south for the winter, and millions of otherwise sane people to don Spandex jumpsuits and silly wigs, flock to Graceland, and light candles in honour of a man who carked it next to his own toilet. (While doing a quick net search just then to confirm that Elvis did indeed die in his bathroom, I also turned up a lot of threads with titles like 'Did Jesus really rise from the dead' and 'Jesus Lives!' Coincidence? I don't think so.)
Maybe they're lower minions of Thelonius the Pissed Off Garden Gnome (who, incidentally, is still in my front garden, and is still creeping me out with that slightly sadistic smile of his). Except that, rather than trying to kill me, their job is to make life as inconvenient for me as possible.
Still, I shouldn't complain. It's the ants who really cop the raw end of the deal.
The ants go marching one b- say, is it getting warm in here?
Hey, that hurts! Ow! OW! Oh, the pain! Someone make it stop! Dear God, the searing agony! Argh!"
And then I'll spend thirty minutes emptying the kettle, refilling it again, boiling it, emptying it again, and refilling it while cursing quietly under my breath.
Occasionally I'll just drink them. I'd hate to think they'd died in vain- and I heard somewhere that ants are meant to be good for you.
Mmmmm... formic acid...
