Bugged

I am having a war on ants and, therefore, a war on lazy-ass family members who:
a) forget the rule of eating only in the kitchen and dining room
b) listen to other family members who say, "I'm sure the rule doesn't include snacks in the playroom"
c) leave beer bottles and coffee cups just about anywhere
d) think it's perfectly fine not to get rid of tree limbs on the lawn after pruning and take almost a year to call a mason to look at repointing

but I digress.

I'm the schmuck that has to stay in this house all day. I'm not into camping or roughing it one bit so bugs of any kind where I live is completely repulsive to me.

Looking online, I gather my problem isn't as bad as it could be but seeing even one ant in the kitchen is enough to consume me, obviously. I bought ant traps (four different kinds) but I'm finding the silicon dioxide to be better. They walk over the powder and track it back to the nest where it will dehydrate them. I've seen less since using the stuff, but my next step will be a homemade borax and icing sugar mix that they'd feed the queen. Only problem with that is it would be toxic to the kids, where as the silicon dioxide isn't.

If this isn't over by the end of the month, I'm calling an exterminator and crashing at a friend's house. Eww. Eww. Eww.

Husband thinks I'm going nuts (and he could be right). He even went to bed early and missed the finale of The Amazing Race which, I think, was the happiest ending possible. After years of watching reality TV, never had I been able to pick someone to cheer for at the beginning and see them win at the end. Hearing about Uchenna and Joyce's problems conceiving a child and how they'd use the million dollars to pay for invitro fertilization, how could your heart not bleed for these people? And then they're at the finish line but they didn't have enough for the cabbie so they continued to beg strangers for cash? Man, that's so upright, or maybe just forward-thinking so the cabbie wouldn't come back and watch the show then sue their asses off.

I was even thinking of them and other childless people on Mother's Day as I was weeding my parents' garden. Neighbour kids were being loud and generally obnoxious: "Not for one thousand million money." "Oh yeah? Well I'm not for FIVE million hundred money." I can kind of filter out kid screams by now, knowing when my attention is critical to the situation. But this time, I was listening to the kids and thought, "I can think of a bunch of people who would give their eyeteeth for the priviledge of children." Whennnnnn, a woman came out and gave them big time hell for being "little brats" and "ruining the day for others." The kids were then sent to their rooms and I was left with boring silence.