Sunday 19 August 2012

Dead ant

I could not believe the sheer number of ants walking up and down our living room last week.  The minute T left on holiday, they must have spotted their opportunity to settle in.  Every night I would come home and find an entire village of them eagerly waiting for me.  They weren't interested in food but were unusually social and only liked to congregate in places near my feet.  Shudder.

I Googled "ants in HK" and found myself with numerous articles describing various strains - brown, red, small, with wings, without, termites...  I wasn't exactly sure which category they fit into, so I ruthlessly murdered one and sat it down next to the computer, so I could give it a full biopsy.  Brown and Big was all I could come up with.

I tolerated them for about three days and then I thought enough is enough and so decided that I needed to exterminate them before they turned into pets.  In comes "Truly Care" who 'guarantee eradication of anything' without ' poisoning your children'.  Sounded perfect.  So I arranged to meet them at x time on x day and raced back from work to let them in and get on with getting this rather unseemly situation under control.

Of course I should have seen this coming.  We walk in and there's not an ant in sight.  Not one.  Even the weevils in the spice drawer had gone into hiding.  I could see the two teenagers from Truly Care with their satchels and chemical tubes rolling their eyes.  They probably have a name for people like me.  People who have phantom pests.

Anyway, they reluctantly sprayed our immacultately clean and pest-free apartment and left.  I haven't seen an ant since, and have been feeling rather good about my proactivity, organization and domestic management skills.  So good, in fact, that we invited people over for dinner last night.  And just as we were sitting down for dessert, one girl discreetly reaches for me and says "I think there might be an insect under the table."  I look and there it is.  The very picture of ant revenge.  The hugest cockroach I've seen in a long time.  Lying on its back under the table.  The Lord works in mysterious ways.