ANTS!

Max got an ant farm for Christmas. We sent off for the ants in January and they finally arrived today (they wait to ship until the weather is warm). The ants were inside a little plastic test tube with a plug lid. The instructions said to put the ants in the refrigerator for 15 minutes so they will be less active in order to get them in the farm. After about 15 minutes we got the ant filled tube out of the fridge, removed the lid to the farm, removed the lid to the ant tube and attempted to dump the ants in their nicely prepared farm. Chaos ensued. First of all, the tube was bigger than the lid to the ant farm so it was difficult to dump them in. Second, the ants were in a big clump so they weren't falling in nicely. Third, what the instructions failed to mention was that approximately 5 seconds after being removed from the refrigerator the ants would be back to their normal, active selves. Ants were everywhere. These aren't your typical nice, yet annoying, black ants. They are red and have those nasty little pinchers on their heads. All over the little tube were caution labels: CAUTION: ANTS WILL BITE. So, being the calm, rational person that I am, upon seeing the ferocious little beasts crawling all over my dining room table I started to panic and scream. Max started to cry and yell, "Mom! Do you want me to get the fly swatter? Just smash them! Kill them!" Jack started to cry. Grant just sat there. All the while, in the chaos I didn't put the lid back on the ant farm so the few ants that did fall in were trying to get back out. I was yelling for the lid while running all around trying to find it. We got the lid on (which may or may not have smashed a couple of ants in the frenzy). There was an empty wipe container on the table so I wiped the escapee ants into it. I put the wipe container back in the refrigerator. After 20 minutes, I got it back out and decided a funnel would work better. First I tried by cutting the corner off of a ziploc. Didn't work; they just stuck to the ziploc. Then I attempted to get them in by funneling a piece of paper. They just started climbing up the paper toward me. Finally, I used a wooden skewer and dropped them in one-by-one. Good grief! Max said, "Man, Mom, I didn't think it would be so much trouble to get them in there."

Hopefully, the boys were traumatized enough by the experience to never take the lid off.