Despite the fact that we keep the kitchen pretty clean, we've ended up with a bit of an Ant problem lately.
I loaded the dishwasher on Monday night and was about to run it when Cindy reminded me that it was after 11PM and since our dishwasher is a noisy old behemoth, I might want to wait until morning.
I loaded the dishwasher on Monday night and was about to run it when Cindy reminded me that it was after 11PM and since our dishwasher is a noisy old behemoth, I might want to wait until morning.
So I did.
And then I forgot in the morning.
When I got home from work, I opened the dish washer to add soap and discovered that EVERYTHING inside the dishwasher was completely acrawl with hundreds of ants.
I mean, if you wanted to make a scary movie about ants, and there needed to be a very creepy-crawly scene with ants that would make the audience cringe and squirm, just shoot some footage of my dishwasher right then.
There was no little path of ants leading to the dishwasher - either the entire colony was inside my appliance, or they came from inside the walls.
What else could I do? I added some soap and I ran the dishwasher. Twice. I still had to hand-wash everything to get rid of the ant carcasses.
But the point of telling you all this is, this morning I was thinking about Tuesday evening and the ants, and wondered what would have happened if I'd put an ant-covered bowl into the freezer. What happened to ants in the cold? Would they die, or go into some sort of hibernation?
Then I scolded myself, for considering freezing dozens of innocent ants just to see what would happen.
And yet, I hadn't given drowning them a second thought. How odd.
My rules: If it's in my house and I did not invite it or name it, it can be killed with no remorse.
ReplyDeleteThis rule is probably a bit broad, since it would allow the murder of door to door salesmen, but I apply it almost exclusively to invertebrates.
Do you know what we do with Cane Toads in Australia? We freeze the little fuckers because it is the humane way to kill them. But you do have to leave them in the freezer for about a week to make sure they are properly dead. If you defrost them too soon, they just come out hibernation. As to ants? Dunno.
ReplyDeleteI for one welcome your new insect overlords.
ReplyDeleteNo, wait. Ants are evil. KILL KILL KILL!
I know if you put a fly in the freezer for a few hours it will hibernate (I know this because it's part of a magic trick, you freeze the fly, put it on a window sill somewhere, then grab it, and the heat from your hands 'brings it back to life')
ReplyDeleteI think it might do ants the same way.
(Oh and technically, you didn't drown them, they can survive underwater for days...you boiled them alive)
Dammit, I knew that ants don't drown! (That quickly, anyway).
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't I remember that as I was writing the post?
Ants don't have lungs, true story.
ReplyDeleteAs for the bowl idea...that would require putting your hand within 5 feet of a bunch of ants, a trick I would not pull if you paid me.
ewwww. Would a flame thrower be merciful? I'd rather scorch instantly than grab onto a greasy lassanga pan while boiled alive . . .
ReplyDeleteof course, I'm reviewing Maxine Hong Kingston's _Woman Warrior_ precisely where she describes the Chinese custom of boiling various edibles alive . . .
if you had chocolat . . .