Seriously?! You may be thinking...

“A blog about ants at Kris and Kritters? OMG.. is she scraping the bottom of the barrel, or what?”

I have a long, long way to go before I even find the bottom of my kritter barrel, so the answer to that is “no.”

As a kid in Spanaway, I used to find huge ant piles underneath evergreen trees (the ants in my neck of the woods used fallen evergreen needles to built mammoth ant piles) and dance on them barefooted really fast to stir the ants up and make them frantic.  I didn't know, back then, that I was being mean: I thought I was just having fun not getting bitten by dancing really fast.

Later, after I moved to Cle Elum, I learned a lesson from an ant. One I cannot forget. One that made me ashamed.

I was walking across the patio in the back of the house one afternoon when I spotted an ant in the pathway ahead of me. I knew my next step would crush it underfoot, but I didn't care...until, suddenly, I did.  The ant was industriously packing a large white bundle of indeterminate composition in its front feet. It was purposeful and determined.

At the last possible millisecond, I recanted my unfeeling attitude toward it. I wanted to avoid smashing it to bits.

As luck would have it, I altered course just enough at the last moment to knock the ant's cargo out of its “hands”.  I immediately apologized (yes, I verbally apologized!), bent down, and picked up the little white bundle. I held it slightly above the ant's front end in a pathetic, apologetic “offering” to let it know I was sorry.

That little ant—I kid you not, and will swear on a stack of bibles—reached up and took the peace offering and then recommitted to its course.

I was utterly speechless. My jaw dropped. I could not believe it!

I pondered the exchange for weeks. I ponder it still at times. I'm pondering it again now.

Perhaps the white bundle was a sac of her eggs. Perhaps it was a source of substance—liquid or solid. I don't know what it was, and I don't know what the ant was “thinking” when I offered it back to 'her'.

All I know is what happened. And I have never looked at ants the same way again. I now see them as sentient beings, not bugs or pests.

Later, in North Hollywood, I bought a condo. One fall day, I noticed a string of very small ants wandering around my kitchen sink. I looked to decide where they were coming from and found the spot.  I cleaned well, put salt out to discourage them, did a number of things to try to discourage them from hanging out indoors around my sink, but they persisted.

Finally, just this side of deciding to employ the big guns and buy some ant spray, I went over to the little string of ants and told them, “I don't want to have to do this, but if you don't go away, I'm going to have to start killing you with nasty ant spray. I hope you figure this out before it comes to that. Please just go away. I don't want to hurt you. Really, I don't. I just want you to move out.”

I never saw them again.

True story. They vanished.

Don't ask me! I don't know what did it. Maybe they could read my mind. Maybe they knew I meant business. I simply have no idea.

All I know is they left.

So I bring you this story and you can believe it or not.

I'm not sure I would if I hadn't experienced it myself.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with ants or other bothersome/in the wrong place critters? I would love to hear it, if so!