Ants In My Pants

Today is day 4 of Shark Week. Big deal. I don’t really care about predators in the ocean right now. I am having creature issues in my own house. For the last year I have had an ant problem in my kitchen. I have tried to figure out where they are coming in the house, to no avail. I took everything out of the cupboards on the exterior wall side of my kitchen, but didn’t find a hole, doorway, or tiny ant loading dock. I tried some natural ways to either thwart them or hopefully make them pack up their little insect luggage and leave. First I tried vinegar in a squirt bottle. I swear vinegar is the main component in ALL natural remedies for every problem. In the case of ants, vinegar is supposed to erase their trail. Since it didn’t work for me, I must have trailblazing genius ants with GPS. They found their old trail just fine. A clerk at Fred Meyer told me to sprinkle cornstarch around. The ants supposedly will walk through the cornstarch, and track it back to the queen. They can’t digest it, so the cornstarch eventually kills them. I went through all my cupboards and sprinkled cornstarch along the edges and corners. I also put it around the edges of my counter tops. I’m not sure what effect it had, but it didn’t make the ants go away, get the sniffles, or die. What it did do was make a mess and gives the appearance that slovenly people live here. The ant population in my kitchen has actually dwindled a bit. They are still there onesy-twosey. Now I mostly wipe them into the sink and turn on the water. Yesterday, I found myself yelling “Woo Hoo!!!” as a little guy zoomed around the drain before disappearing. I thought I would give him a really nice sendoff for his water-slide ride to the Great Beyond. Then again, since it’s Shark Week, who knows what is lurking down my pipes...