The stuff of horror films
Written by hootenannie on March 8th, 2011This time last year, I was seeing ants in my kitchen. I eventually discovered that they had raided my sugar bag, so I threw it out, and from that point on, I’ve kept my sugar in the freezer – and thus, an ant-free kitchen.
But a few weeks ago, I saw an ant.
And you know what they say: where there’s one ant, there are lots of more ants.*
For weeks, I have seen ants in my kitchen – but I was never able to figure out their point of genesis. I cleaned the kitchen cabinets, Cloroxed the counters, sealed every food item, and cleared every crumb after every meal.
Still, the ants came marching one by one.
The other night, I was setting my coffee for the next morning. I poured the water into the machine, and as I did, I caught sight of an ant camouflaged on the side of the black coffee maker.
I killed it.
And then, I saw another ant come crawling out of the machine.
So I killed it, too.
And all of a sudden, there was a flood, a deluge, a gushing of ants coming out of my coffee maker.
My coffee maker.
The hotbed was IN MY COFFEE MAKER.
Shockingly, I didn’t scream, but I made a pathetic, drawn out, traumatized noise of some sort – somewhere between a moan and a cry and a “Die, scum” sob. I aimed the bottle of Clorox at the teeming swarm, and just started spraying – spraying like a stream of Charlie Sheen nonsense. Finally, I slammed the lid shut, took the entire coffee machine, dumped it in a Hefty bag, and marched it to the dumpster.
You do realize what this means, right?
For weeks, I have been drinking coffee that has been STRAINED THROUGH ANTS.
I will never, ever recover from this.
*Not an actual phrase, but true all the same. Obviously.
8
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Still, that might be the best way to prepare coffee from beans that have been strained thru a cat.
8
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Oh. Wow.
I’m proud of your swift disposal skills.
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I’m laying here with my surgeried knee on a mountain of pillows… alone in a hotel room in DC. This pretty much made my day. THANK YOU.
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I just took an extra big swallow of coffee in sympathy… and felt around in my mouth for ants.
Ew.
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Best line: “spraying like a stream of Charlie Sheen nonsense.”
You make ickiness really funny Annie.
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You’ve effectively made my skin crawl. Feeling the need to go inspect every inch of my kitchen – nay, me entire house – now.
Best description ever: “…somewhere between a moan and a cry and a ‘Die, scum’ sob.”
8
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No words.
Just, no words.
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oh, Annie. My freshman year of college, we had bed bugs–invisible to everyone but my rapidly rash-developing arms, legs, stomach, neck, and anything-exposed-on-my-body for months. MONTHS. When they finally discovered what was going on, we realized there were bugs everywhere. The kicker for me was when we pulled out the stereo that had been positioned right next to my head. My roommate took a pen cap and proceeded to pour–POUR–bugs and bodies and eggs out of every crevice of it. I never recovered either.
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Reminds me of the night my cat was sneezing uncontrollably, so I turned on the light to look at her and figure out the reason. As I was rubbing her face, I shifted the fur between her eyes – and 840 MILLION FLEAS CRAWLED OUT. No wonder the darling was sneezing.
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This may be the most horrific thing I’ve ever heard. I feel for you, and my skin is crawling. I may have to take a shower AND brush my teeth now.
I’m proud of you for just throwing out the coffee maker. You’d be feeling around in your mouth every single time you drank coffee from that machine, getting creeped out by anything that felt remotely more solid than the coffee.
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Chills up and down my arms. I think I made that same noise just reading this. Horror indeed!
9
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I just collectively lost my shit…. oh my.
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this was terrifying.
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Oh snap!
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That was hilarious.
And now you can shop for a new coffee machine :).
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I also go all homicidal on spiders. And there’s usually just one of those at a time. Usually.
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Oh Annie! I so know how you feel. We have a bit of an ant problem at work. One day I was super rushed, so I was grading while eating lunch. I’d eaten about half of my sandwich before I realized ants were coming out of it. I STILL can’t eat a PB and J!
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Please tell me this did not happen from the coffee maker you inherited from the office.
Please?
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that’s bad. real bad.
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I just read this aloud to Todd.
I couldn’t get through the words “STRAINED THROUGH ANTS” without completely cracking up.
I am wiping away tears as I type.
I love you. :)
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Oh my gosh – this is seriously, like, the best story EVER. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, Annie. I think I’ll laugh. Amazing. A-mazing.
P.S. Congrats on your new subaROO!