Jessica McFarland

Last night a spider the size of a mouse sauntered across the floor, casual as you please.

It was quickly caught, barely fitting into the largest glass in the kitchen, and released into the garden. Hopefully it cherishes its freedom enough to never ever set foot in this house again.

I use the passive form of the verb ‘to catch’ because I didn’t do the catching myself. I would have, but only after the requisite amount of screaming and shivering had been achieved. Really! I was going to let it go myself. But having my boyfriend do it was just quicker.

Mind you, I wasn’t always so nice to spiders. With maturity, I have developed the opinion that non-human creatures, like humans, have the right to a full life, one that doesn’t end in being smashed under a book. (These rights are suspended in wartime, of course, such as in the on-going Formic Wars in the kitchen.)
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I used to have an ant problem in the kitchen.

The first time the ants invaded my home territory, I massacred them with a sponge and set up a protective clove powder barrier along the window sill. (Read about it here.) I thought it was over.

But the Great Ant War must now be referred to as Ant War I, because Ant War II soon followed. (I guess my initial sanctions were too restrictive.)

It’s a shame, too. The clove barrier seemed like the perfect solution. If they couldn’t get into the house, I wouldn’t have any reason to take any more ant lives.
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Now I am become death, the destroyer of ants.

It started innocuously enough. I would see a lone ant here or there, in the front room or the kitchen. Not wanting to harm a creature that had not (yet) harmed me, I left them alone. I mean, how much space does one ant take up? Surely there’s room in here for the both of us, and can’t we all just get along?

Then, without warning, what I see now to be the inevitable happened. I came home on Friday evening, after an epic grocery shopping trip no less, went to put the groceries away, and found that the entire kitchen countertop was alive. I was totally overrun. I could almost hear the accompanying horror film soundtrack.

What happened next was, unfortunately, necessary. I killed them, I killed them all without mercy. I sprayed them with multi-purpose cleaner and wiped them up with a sponge before rinsing them down the drain. I pulled up the venetian blinds and got all the ones on the window sill. I picked up the pile of dirty dishes and got the ones under there, too.

Any that managed to get away must have hobbled back to the ant hill in the front garden and collapsed, babbling incoherently, after having witnessed the mass murder of their peers. It would have taken hours, days maybe, before they were able to tell the whole ghastly story. Monuments will be built. Minutes of silence will be observed. Those that were lost will not be forgotten.

Or so I would hope. But it’s far more likely that none escaped, because presumably if they had, they would have told the others not to come back. Seriously. I do try to help them of course. On the suggestion of a friend, I have sprinkled ground cloves along the window sill. This is supposed to mess with their sensory mechanism enough make them stay away.

It does work, to an extent, though only for about a week. And then they’re back (and in greater numbers). In the meantime, the brown powder all over the place makes me look like the least efficient cook ever. I would like to avoid pesticides, and not from a humane perspective (I mean, if the poison doesn’t kill them, I will). I just don’t think that noxious chemicals and food preparation are a winning combination.

So, for now anyway, it’s a weekly sprinkle of clove powder in the kitchen. And when that fails, the sponge. I am the last thing so many ants ever see. I am the destroyer of ant worlds. I am death (the death of ants).