I Knew This Day Was Coming

The first week after our honeymoon, we settled into our small apartment and began to build a life together. But there was one big problem...

It wasn't that sometimes Byron snored, or that I made Byron late for everything, or even that I refused to do dishes. The problem was one little - tiny - evil - flying ant. Well, at least it started that way.

Now, before you start to think I'm using a very creative metaphor, or a less known analogy, I need to make something very, very clear. When I say flying ant, I mean a literal, disgusting, creepy, gross, flying ant.

And I hate ants.

Back when we lived in Colorado, Byron worked at a restaurant, and often times, he worked doubles (which means he'd go to work at 10am, get an hour break around 4pm, and then go back to work from 5pm until midnight).

So, on one fateful day after we had gotten home from our honeymoon, Byron had to work a double. I kissed him goodbye and sent him on his way, and I began to wonder how I should fill my free Saturday. We only had one car at this time, so when Byron would take the car to work, I would stay home and study or do chores around the apartment.

This particular day, I thought I was in the mood for chores. I decided to start with laundry. I walked into the bedroom and began to strip the bed. As I pulled the comforter off of our bed, I saw a little fuzzy.

And then, that little fuzzy moved.

I stepped closer, probably pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, and squinted to double check the status of the little moving fuzzy.

Upon closer examination, I noticed that the little fuzzy was anything BUT a little, innocent fuzzy. It had wings, beady eyes, malevolent antennae, and entirely too many appendages for any one creature. Yes, my biggest fear was confirmed... In my home, in our sacred marriage bed, was a creeping, crawling,  carpenter ant. And that's about when I completely freaked out.

I ran into the kitchen as quickly as I could, grabbed the paper towel roll, and ran back to the bedroom. My next task was to catch the ant and then flush it down the toilet. Of course, I was terrified, but someone had to do the job, and I was home alone. I used as many paper towels as I could managed, to ensure that the ant wouldn't somehow make contact with my skin, caught it, rushed into the bathroom, and flushed it down the toilet.

I gave a short sigh of relief. Ok... that's done... back to cleaning.  I walked over to the bathroom sink to wash my hands. And then, I became terrifyingly aware that there were more carpenter ants in my apartment than just the one in the bedroom. There were three more, just hanging out in the sink, like they owned the place.

I ran to the kitchen again, found the Lysol spray bottle, gave the ants a good 20-30 squirts of poison, and turned the sink water in hopes of wash them away, to their watery graves.

The panic started to settle in. What if they're E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E!

I began to canvas the apartment, like a boy scout would canvas a field if someone had lost something important or valuable, and they desperately needed to find it. I checked the carpet. I searched the couch. I looked through the closets. I scanned the kitchen cabinets. And I kept finding more.

I vacuumed the carpet, I bleached the sinks, I mopped the floors, I cleaned like a maniac. If I find them and kill them all, I'll be fine. But even after a good 6 hours of cleaning (I wasn't joking when I said I completely freaked out), I still kept finding them.

I finally decided that they were coming in through the sinks, windows, door cracks, and air conditioner. We didn't have central air conditioning, but we did have wall units hanging from our windows. I turned off all of the air conditioners (mind you, this was taking place during the first week of July), ensuring that the ants couldn't come flying in with the cold air, as if they were taking a plane ride to a cooler climate. I pulled my hair into a bun on the top of my head to keep my hair safe from the ants.

For just a moment, I started to think it was time to calm down. I thought I was in the clear, finally.

But then, I saw one last ant, the ant that broke the camel's back. After killing it quickly, I started googling home remedies for ants and read that cinnamon repels them. I started pouring cinnamon in the sinks, on the floors, by the doors, along the windows, any place I could think of that might allow them entry into my apartment. By this time, It was about 11:30pm, and I knew Byron was going to be home soon. I decided to sit down on the couch to rest for a minute and come up with my next move.

Suddenly, the front door make a familiar clicking sound. A key turns, the knob twists, and the door swings open. Byron was home, a whole 30 minutes earlier than normal, and saw me sitting on the couch, knees pulled up to my chest, sitting in a ball, glasses sliding down my nose, frizzy curls falling out of my bun all around my face, and beads of sweat on my brow. I looked absolutely insane.

Byron's jaw dropped.

Uh, Babe, what are you doing?
They're everywhere. [My eyes become startlingly wide)
Who's everywhere?
The ants. [My eyebrows raise to become visible above the rims of my glasses]
The ants?
[I inhale slowly] Yes, Byron, the ants.

Byron's eyes dropped to the door way, full of cinnamon. Nervously, I waited for his reaction.

Did he think I was crazy?
Did he believe me that there really were ants everywhere?

And then, Byron started to laugh. As if it was nothing, he walked over to the air conditioner and turned it back on, helped me get off the couch, and convinced me that ants never killed anyone, and everything was going to be just fine.

Praise the Lord for a husband that can calm me down when it comes to ants! And he was totally right. I had successfully killed all of the ants, I had deep cleaned the apartment, and the next day, the nightmare was over for me. There were no more ants to be found.

So, after that long story, you're probably thinking, ok, good story, but the title of this post is "I Knew This Day Was Coming" So, what does the title mean? 

Well, today, in my apartment here in Ternopil, Ukraine, I had a bug disaster that brought the ant situation back to my mind - and Byron's too.

I was in the kitchen, about to make cornbread to go with the chili I made for dinner. I pulled the cornmeal out of the cabinet and started to measure out one cup of cornmeal. As I was pouring, I noticed a thin, long, white, sticky string. I thought it was part of the plastic bag that the cornmeal was in, grabbed it with my fingers, and threw it in the trash. Only seconds later, as I continued to pour the cornmeal into the measuring cup, maggot after maggot rolled out of the bag, sliding along the cornmeal, as if they were surfing a yellow wave, headed straight into my measuring cup. I slowly set down the bag and measuring cup and stifled a gag.

At that very moment, Byron looked up at me, saw my face turn deathly white, and instantly knew he had to intervene before he had another "Ant Fiasco" on his hands.

Oh, and I should mention, while all of this is happening, the guests that are spending the night with us were in the other room. Fortunately, they went out for dinner with a friend, so I didn't have to explain why we couldn't have cornbread with the chili for dinner : )

Some of the little maggots had wings already (SOOOO much worse than flying ants!), so Byron had to kill them quickly, and work alone. I was paralyzed from fear, washing my hands repeatedly because I knew that the sticky string was something maggot-related, and it had touched my bare skin.

Unlike the ant disaster, Byron and I were likeminded in thinking that we had to find and kill all of the maggots to keep from having an infestation on our hands, or disgusted guests. I grabbed my rubber cleaning gloves and we worked together to bleach out our pantry and made sure all of the nasty little worms were gone. We also threw out any open food that we had, just in case some of the maggots escaped the cornmeal bag and made a new home for themselves. In the end, the crisis was averted, but man did it bring back some bad memories - and gave me the willies!

So far, we've been really blessed to not have cockroaches, or any bugs, in our apartment here in Ukraine, but ever since we moved to a more humid climate, I've been waiting for the day when I would see little bugs around, fixated on torment me. The mealworms were pretty bad, but all things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

I don't have an overarching moral for this story, or any special reason why I wrote all of this. I guess, I just wanted to share with all of you readers that, I really hate bugs, especially in my home, and when faced with one or more insect, it's best if my husband is nearby :)

Blessings,
Emily