Words You Never Want To Hear
"Mommy, I have ants on my graham crackers!"
And you look, and yes, there are very teeny-tiny ants the exact same color as the cracker ON that cracker. And the others you gave your child. And as you look in the package they are in there. And as you look on the baby's crackers, they are on them. You're able to find a few ant free crackers to give to the now screaming baby (because you TOOK AWAY HIS SNACK!) and try not to be too grossed out, since the silly child won't listen to reason. And some things are worth the silence.
And you go investigate the cupboard. And find more ants. And ants in all your other boxes of crackers (and discovered you had WAY too many crackers). And in a box of stuffing. So far the brown rice, couscous and instant mashed potatoes seem fine. But I'm watching them. And trying not to be too grossed out. Because I HATE ants.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Are you sure they aren’t rice weevils or some other pest?
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/home/e300w.htm
July 30th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Interesting site. Nope, they were ants (trust me, I KNOW ants). Complete with a trail leading out of the boxes and inside the cupbord.
Actually though, they are SO tiny it’s hard to see how they can be prevented. I did clean out the entire shelf and put an ant trap we have (because we’ve had them before, just not IN the food) up in the cabinet, so hopefully I gave them all poison they took back to their ant hill and I can be assured I wiped out the colony.
And once I get more crackers and open the box, the items inside WILL be stored in ziplock bags, not just the plastic bag folded over/clipped shut, because they had gotten through the folds into them. But I had some gold fish crackers in a zip lock bag and they didn’t get those.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Didn’t your hubby ever tell you about the worms in the raisins?