“Death is everywhere. There are ants in my cereal, for a start. Reminding us, we may have a stomachache tonight.
Death is everywhere. There are ants in my bottle, already drown. And I can sense the water finished, by tonight.”
– An unknown artist’s adaptation of a well known song.
I don’t get it. My water is as plain as it should be. Yet, there are ants drowning inside my sealed water jar. At home. Everyday. I no longer use drinking mugs that are not white in color. Because I need to see what I am drinking. In case if I need to fish the bodies out from the water. Those floating on top that is. I suppose I could ignore the extra protein content and drink up. But ants annoy me. I love the house lizards and I hate the ants.
I am 1.72m tall. Let’s say, if I am to be represented as a disc in a two-dimension model, I have an effective area of 2.32m² (assuming that I am walking on all four for reasons that will become obvious later). Singapore has a land size of 704km². In effect, Singapore is 300 million times bigger than me.
Using the same model, by my calculation, my home is 100 million times bigger than a typical ant that shares the same address as I do. Yet, if I drop a piece of chocolate on my keyboard right here right now, I bet within minutes, the ants will find it, and munch onto it. This is mind blowing. If someone was to unload a truck full of ice cream at Orchard right now, I doubt I would even know about it. Do ants tweet to each other or what?
Not long ago, I have an ant invasion problem with my breakfast. Cynthia would prepare cereal for us. I often stare at the computer screen while having my first meal of the day. Halfway through my breakfast, I would spot black dots floating on top of the milk. At first I thought those were pieces of wheat. In close examination, those were ant bodies. I would pick them up one after another and dump their bodies onto the kitchen sink. A dozen, or more.
Cynthia and I have brainstormed on our situation. And we have come up with the following possibilities.
- The ants got into the cereal at the factory and become part of cereal.
- The ants got into the cereal during transportation. Possibly inside a container on a ship. Because ants swim.
- The ants got into the cereal at the supermarket. In that case, we have some complaint letters to write.
- The ants got into the cereal at my home. We have since locked our beloved cereal inside an airtight container stored in the fridge. It did not seem to work.
- The ants find a way into our fridge, and somehow survive a near zero temperature. This is evolution. Ice age ants.
- The ants got into the cereal while Cynthia was preparing breakfast. Cynthia protested that this is preposterous. Because how can a dozen of ant commandos get into a bowl full of cereals while she fetches milk and makes coffee? Two minutes top, she said.
- The ants were already swimming inside the milk carton!
- Edit: Upon reading this post, Cynthia asked, “How about ants that were already hiding in our cereal bowls before breakfast was prepared?” I guess since this is brainstorming, there are no right or wrong answers. Could ants be that smart?
Just like that, our mysterious cereal problem has mysteriously disappeared. Now leaving us to deal with a new problem: Ants inside our sealed water jar. Were they inside the kettle and died a horrible death? Or they were merely drown inside the jar?
I have no clue.
“Death is everywhere. The more I look, the ants I see. The more I feel a sense of mystery, tonight.”
– An unknown artist’s attempt to finish the song.
5 replies on “Dead Ants Swimming”
Haha! I hate ants and i am so irritated with them. I buy ant poison to rid them. I trace their trails and place the poison and they will be gone for awhile before they are back again. Having said that, i do feel bad killing them but… If only they dont appear in my house :p
JT – You know, I used to deploy poison in the past. I think how it works is for the ant workers to bring the poison to the nest and poison their queen. But the poison was so strong that the ants died on the spot. What a mess!
After that experience, I am not sure if I want to see such massacre in my house.
haha! i really like your post (sorry abt the ant problem though)… i used to have ants swimming in water jar but after our renovation the ant problem changed. i find an average of 8 – 10 ants in my room on a weekend that i dont go out. i cant trace where it comes from. i dont bring food (not even water) into my room so i dont know how the ants survive (or maybe thats why i see them, crawling out of my room to find food?). my only possible ans is that they crawl from outside thr the window into my room…?
Si Ying – Thanks for dropping by!
Ants are mysterious creatures, are they not? I read somewhere that ants appear in our house due to a lack of resources (like water). Maybe the ants are really suffering from the lack of water supply?
I think ant has its place in the natural world. But it is kind of annoying in an urban home.
Where do the ants stay? Good question. There must be a nest somewhere inside some cracks in my house.
Ya! I think ants outside in fields, crawling up the trees or wood benches to be cute/ at least natural! But not in our house. Sometimes I wonder if they are jus lost – Like the way you describe how big our world is to them.
I imagined if I am an ant, I will freak out getting lost in a house? But to think of it, I stay on the 9th floor, how long does it takes for the first ant to crawl all the way up? Unless they “hop” onto me/my bags and took the lift up?