The Parable of the Ants

So ... you deserve to have fair warning: this blog post could possibly involve a wee bit o' whining. As in wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Before I go further, however, I do want you to know that I did learn some lessons from my adversity, I am grateful for all my blessings and I am well aware that these problems are miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Having said that ...

It all started Thursday afternoon while I was innocently doing exactly what I am doing now, working on the computer. Without warning, the screen goes to black and the air conditioning and ceiling fans come to a halt also. I was not concerned because I was just about out the door to get my hair cut and figured the power would be back on by the time I returned. Except that as I pressed the button to open my garage, I came to the immediate revelation that it too, was powered by electricity. Manually opening the garage (not an easy task for a weakling such as myself) I then took 30 minutes to get to my appt. (10 minutes away) because every stop light in town was now a 4-way stop. Alas ... no hair cut for me.

Not all was lost however. That evening I met some neighbors I hadn't known before as we gathered collectively on our front porches to get out of our sticky homes. Several people from church came by to "check on me" which I so appreciated and not long after attempting to go to sleep (and 8 full hours after it was turned off) the power came on and all was good. (You may have read about our little power outtage that affected about 2 million people. I was one of them. I was fine.)

The next morning dawned bright and early as I was expecting my door painter to come, thereby tethering me to my home for the next 8 hours while the door dried. He came. He painted. He left. I went to pour myself a bowl of cereal, but when I opened my pantry door, I discovered that a large colony of ants had taken up residence therein, during the night. I'm not gonna lie -- I shrieked like a girly-girl, while I pulled everything out of my pantry. I knew that I didn't have any ant killers on hand after my move and I knew that I could not leave my house with the door open. I also felt that it might be unwise to call the BugMan and have him spraying so close to my still sticky door. I headed upstairs to the closest thing I could think of that "sprayed" (see hairspray above) and then I came down and coifed those suckers to death one by one.

Eventually, I did call in the professionals who could not come until the next day. Unlike AZ where you just stick around while they spray, these CA exterminators require that you leave the premises. Before I left, he explained that I might still see a few "stragglers" when I returned and not to worry. I went and got my hair cut and then returned to find more stragglers than I was expecting. I fought those (with Windex this time at his suggestion ... and yes he scoffed at my choice of repellent) for the next 2 days, but finally got rid of them all and put my food back in the pantry. Yeah ... that was a mistake.

The next morning while once again reaching for the Honey Nut Chex, I discover the entire side wall was thick with them. All right ... these are definitely not straggling. I called the BugMan who heartily agreed that a return visit was in order and promised to be there in about an hour. Now, officially playing hooky from work, I headed upstairs to sew. About a half hour later I decided to go down and check on my little industrious renters (frankly hoping there were still enough of them to convince the BugMan the error of his ways.) As I stepped off the bottom step and onto the hard wood floors in my dining room ... I found that I was stepping in water.

This time there was no shrieking ... it was more weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I grabbed towels and a bucket and turned off the valve in the bathroom right above where the leak was (which was actually coming out of a vent and not through dry wall, thank goodness) and the leaking came to a halt. Right then, the BugMan arrives (a different one than before) and explains that I will have to leave while he sprays. I didn't know what to do so I went to a nearby McDonald's while I made the necessary calls to find a plumber. I'm not gonna lie ... I was still a little weepy and I think it was creeping out the nearby children who were munching on their Happy Meals.

Sometime while I was sitting there I had the following thought: If I had not been there waiting for BugMan2, I would have been at work and by the time I returned I would definitely have ruined floors and possibly a giant hole in my ceiling.

I was absolutely stunned by this revelation and yes ... it made me cry even more. I'm pretty certain I will not be returning to that particular McDonalds any time in the near future.

End of story? The plumber came. He fixed stuff. He charged me a lot of money to fix stuff. He did not charge me nearly what it would have cost me to replace floors and ceilings. BugMan2 completely erradicated the ants with one try. I am pretty darn certain that BugMan1 never even sprayed the pantry which was the entire reason he was called to my home.

I will forever be grateful to BugMan1 and his forgetful/slacker habits.

The moral of the story? The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways and apparently He employs ... ants.