Ants

Finally, the exterminator showed up today to spray for the ants in the office. Having grown tired of the lack of scenery in the hallway between Luke's old office and the copier, they had decided to explore the vast wasteland that is Dane's office. I walked in this morning to, "Grummmble", stomp, stomp. "[expletive] ants." stomp, stomp.

Now I've been rather worried about this whole spraying for ants thing. I just, just got my allergies under control from their unrestrained chaotic take over of my body at the end of last month. We're talking pesticide here, systemic. Raid makes me gasp, even the "unscented" Raid. This guy isn't going to use the stuff that might make the ants think about hiring slugs to go in first. This guy is going to use something that goes right to the atoms they use for brains and explodes those, immediately, without going past "Go" and collecting $200. Honestly, I don't want to be anywhere near this.

I have stacks of papers on the left side of my desk. I really need to be here today to finish some of this particularly as a client has asked where his report is. (Do not point out the obvious, that I should be dealing with those and not blogging. I type when the spirit moves me or you don't get a blog post.) It's all right here and it's all ready to be typed. The boss, at 11:49, sticks his head into my office and bids me "adieu" for the day. Nice. He's been doing this for years so I'm used to it. Not 15 minutes later, a guy with a stainless steel spray can walks into the office looking for the boss. Of course. Isn't this how it's supposed to work?

Luke shows the guy the ants, which have decided the visit to Dane's office was too traumatic and are working toward the filing cabinets. "Yup, you got carpenter ants and they are breeding," declares the exterminator. He then pumps the handle on his sprayer and squirts a wide swatch of liquid onto these ants. They curl up and die. I make a bee line for my office.

He spends the next 10 minutes saturating the carpet where any ant even thinks about heading. He saturates the carpet under the windowsill where they are coming in, the windowsill and the drywall. Luke asks at least twice, "Is this stuff you're using okay to be around?" "Yup," comes the not so reassuring reply. When he's done, he heads outside to saturate the bottom of the window and the ground in front of it.

Meanwhile, I am mentally tallying up my options. I have to work to do. There is no odor, surprisingly. I would have thought there would be. The exterminator comes back in and tells us not to drop anything on the carpet in the areas he's sprayed until tomorrow but it's okay to walk over it. I can't tell where he's sprayed anymore. There's nothing, other than ant bodies, to indicate we'd had any sort of problem.

It's now 2.5 hours after he was here and I feel no ill effects. Maybe it will be okay?

Back to pushing papers from one side to the other.

Beverage: water

Deb