Ants in my pants (literally)

We have been having a summer problem with ants – little tiny red ants that are absolutely EVERYWHERE. They haven’t been bothering me too much because they don’t seem to be finding anything in particular except a few dead bugs to disembowel and sometimes they crowd around droplets of water. They did take an unwelcome liking to my unbaked muesli which was annoying, but I tossed half in the freezer and baked the other half into granola, so all good there. Since then I’ve been even more careful about wrapping up my food and making sure temptation is well sealed away, so in general they haven’t been a big problem.

But as the days drag on there are more and more ants, crawling on my computer, crawling on my desk, crawling in my agenda and on my papers and pens and books, and yes, crawling on me. I seem to be covered in them day and night – little tiny ticklers that catch me off guard and tickle like that persistent shed hair. But the adventurous human scalers are still in the minority, so that’s not even so bad. But (and I suppose this was only a matter of time too), now they are in my bed! Several nights now I have had a fairly uncomfortable time of it because it is true these ants are generally harmless – except when you sleep on them. Then they get, well, antsy, and they bite.

So now I’m paranoid. Every little tickle is an ant. Every pinch is an ant. I am continually vacillating between brushing invisible ants off my arms and legs and then trying to ignore the real thing chewing into my shoulder. And then, with my evening ritual of dessert and frozen yogurt and a good book came the final blow – ants in my pants.

Apparently the ants have taken a special liking to my pajamas. I put them on and the now-normal daytime itching continued…then increased…and increased in a particular region until I just had to check. Yup, pajama pants were full of ants. Go figure.

So, I set to work drowning them and washing them and washing all of my underwear and brushing out my bed (I’m sure I’ll still be sleeping with more ants tonight), before returning to my now-melted yogurt. But they are back – now they’ve even cracked the secret of the Nalgene bottle. I opened up to take a swig today only to find the top inside swarming with the little red buggers. I give up – there really is no battle to be fought. My pants go to the ants.