| Dear Family and Friends, ANTS . . . they seem so fascinating when you sit on a busy street corner and watch them diligently work as you poke a large stick into their dirt hill . . . they are the busiest little buggers that you ever did see and they hardly seem phased by the looming chunk of wood and your manic cackle as they work together to entrap a screaming dung beetle. Yes, ants ARE fascinating creatures when you can gleefully enter and cause havoc in THEIR home . . . UNTIL they enter YOUR humble abode. My story begins on a drizzly April morning in Bulgaria, me nestled in my warm bed as the drizzle splashed lightly on my bedroom window and my dreams enraptured me. �Uuuggghhh,� I groaned as my alarm went off for the eighth time, stretching like a lazy cat. �I don�t wannaaa get up . . . I don�t wannaaa go to school . . .� Nevertheless, I eventually forced myself into a sitting position, rubbed my tired eyes, and prepared myself for Thursday. And, in all my unorganized glory, it seems that I am always rushing to make it to school by 7:45 now that I am blessed with the morning schedule! Before I rushed madly out the door, I grabbed my backpack, stuffed a smaller bag that contained my debit card into my backpack, and gazed briefly at the floor from which my bags had come. I gasped in horror, stepped back abruptly, and slammed into my life-sized Britney Spears ornamental statue. Little black ants scurried around my feet in hasty confusion, delighting in the havoc that only an ant can create. �SCUM!� I screamed like a woman on the brink of insanity. �FILTHY CRETINS! HORROR OF ALL HORRORS!� I batted at them lightly and they laugh simultaneously, taunting me as they scurried and pointed in my direction . . . �Foolish woman!� they mocked with evil ant grins. I glanced at my watch, as the minutes until the start of school ticked away. I didn�t have time for this insanity . . . I would have to take care of it when I got home. So, I rushed to school, stepping on every anthill along the way with brutal force, and I bounced into my sixth grade class just in time. �Good morning,� I greeted my students. �Take out your homework!� And that was when the TRUE horror began . . . I reached into my backpack for my new package of SpongeBob Squarepants stickers and they suddenly seemed to come out of the woodwork . . . menacing black ants streamed from my bag, falling to the teacher�s table and the floor to seek a new abode of terror. �Eeek!� I squeaked as the ants poured out in rapid succession and my students looked on with horror and confusion. I flicked the ants with all of my might as they kept coming, snickering and sneering upon the entrance of each ant buddy. WHY do ants have to travel in packs?!!? Several of my sixth grade boys jumped from their seats and attempted to come to my rescue, as the girls squealed and gripped one another in utter fright. The boys stomped on the parade of taunting ants with all of their might, their heavy boy feet stomping exceedingly upon the ants as the classroom suddenly became a bloodbath. �We�ll show YOU!� we challenged the little black creatures, as I flicked, the boys stomped, and the girls squealed until we were all deaf. It seemed that each time we breathed a sigh of relief and relished our accomplishment, another ant would appear, menacing and rude as it tried to avoid the big tennis shoes threatening to come down on its head. �Why did Miss Sloan come to school with a bag full of ants?!� my students seemed to question with each kill. I emptied my backpack in an attempt to remove all ants from its presence as my entire body shook and trembled as if it were covered with bugs. My students taught me the Bulgaria word for ants (Mravki), a word that I hadn�t bothered to learn until confronted with the little creatures. �Mravki! Mravki!� we cried out in unison and the ants mocked our words gleefully. When the first period bell rang and my students filed out of the room, dead ants littered the floor and several stubborn beasts still roamed amongst the dead. I was in my Bulgarian counterpart�s room, so I wondered how she would take to the invasion when she arrived at school. When my second period sixth graders came in, I decided that we�d have to have class somewhere else, which happened to be outside for lack of other free rooms. It was a little chilly, but anything beats ants! During the long break, I raced home to try to take care of the ants in my apartment for fear that they were invading it more and more with each minute. Pictures danced in my head of mravki snuggled into my bed, on my computer using up all of my Internet hours, discovering if I had any good food in my kitchen, and being nosy in all of my stuff. IT WAS WAR. But, WHERE do you buy bug spray in this country?! Do they even HAVE bug spray?!!? Oh, WOE is me!!! But, in my crisis, I discovered that Bulgaria DOES have bug spray--they actually have Raid, believe it or not!�and it is sold in the PHARMACY of all places! I scraped together 5 leva worth of stotinki (coins!) since I was lacking funds, raced to the nearest Apteka (pharmacy), and purchased the most blessed can of Raid that I ever did see!!! When I got home, the bugs seemed to have disappeared into thin air (waiting for their next attack, no doubt!), but I sprayed like there was no tomorrow! I sprayed under this, through that, next to this, along that, on top of this . . . until the fumes from my �blessed� can of Raid caused me to foam at the mouth, go into wild convulsions, and forget my name and my eye color in an instant. Later in the day, as my body tried to adjust to the fact that there WERE no bugs crawling all over it, I sat in my last period class that I teach with my counterpart . . . IN HER CLASSROOM. I looked for visible signs of the massacre, flashbacks torturing my very soul, but all I could see were a few smashed ant bodies strewn about. My eyes bugged out of my head as I tried to find an ant crawling across the room, I was deceived by the occasional shadow that danced across a patch of sunlight on the floor. �An ant!� my mind would exclaim as I subconsciously batted at my arm. �Nope, it�s just the shadow from Georgi�s pencil.� �Ooh, ooh, there�s one!� my head ticked as I tore into my scalp with my fingernails. �Oops, mistaken again . . . that�s just my counterpart.� I pulled at my sweater as sweat poured down my flushed cheeks, my hair stood on end, my eyes twitched, and my lips quivered . . . oh WOE is me!!! ANTS . . . they�re fascinating creatures when you torture them with a stick, but when they torture you with their very presence . . . now THAT�S a different story altogether. Isn�t it?!!? Insanely Yours, Your Friendly Hometown Exterminator |
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