Sick of winter, but sicker of ants

OK, it’s official. I’m sick of winter. I didn’t realize it until this afternoon when winter took a brief respite. I stepped out of the house and my nose hairs didn’t immediately freeze solid. That hasn’t happened in a while.

The temperature was 50 degrees. That’s 50 degrees ABOVE zero, man!

But I’m trying not to get too excited. I’ve lived in Michigan most of my life and I know it’s not going to last. By tomorrow, the day after at the latest, it’ll be bone-chill weather again, with spring still at least a couple weeks away - a tiny, tiny light at the end of a very, very long tunnel.

Despite that, and despite the fact I’m sick, sick, sick of winter, I’m still glad to see it arrive every year. Why?

Simply put: winter kills bugs.

See, in addition to living in Michigan, I’ve also lived in Texas and Arizona. They don’t have winter in those places, and lemme tell ya, the bugs get bigger there than house pets get here. It’s worse in Arizona than in Texas, I’m not sure why. Maybe because Texans aren’t afraid to use their shootin’ irons on those pesky cockroaches and June bugs. God knows it would take at least three rounds from a .38 to bring down some of the roaches I’ve seen near San Antonio.

Still, bad as they are in Texas, the bugs are definitely worse in Arizona.

I lived in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. I was only 15 at the time and had not yet received that Holy Grail of teenager-dom; my driver’s license. So I still had to walk or ride my bike everywhere I went. That put me right out there in the open, at the mercy of every bug that could survive the trackless miles of unforgiving desert that surround that godforsaken hell hole of a city (I’m not trying to make friends of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce here).

Those bugs, through the very nature of their environment, have to be tough. And ornery.
Seriously, in the two years my family lived there I saw beetles bigger than hummingbirds and centipedes longer than a garden hose.

Phoenix residents think nothing of the occasional missing dog, cat or small child; just another “bug attack.” Replace the window screen and empty a few cans of Raid, then it’s back to business as usual.

Then of course, there are the scorpions and tarantulas. Folks in Arizona check their shoes carefully before putting them on in the morning. The ones who live into old age, at least.
But even the scorpions, roaches and centipedes pale in comparison to the most adversarial of all God’s creepy-crawlies: the ant.

Now, Michigan ants are bad enough; they get in your cupboards and make a meal of anything they find there. They mess with your picnic and have a way of committing suicide in your lemonade when you’re not looking. They are a nuisance.

Arizona ants are another matter altogether. There’s a reason the desert is filled with the bleached bones of so many different critters. Those bones might have been live, healthy animals (or people) the day before.  All it takes is one mistake, one misstep, and ziiiiiippp, you’re a prop in a cowboy movie.

Arizona ants are the piranha of the desert. Especially the “fire ants.” They’re big and red, but that’s not why they call ‘em fire ants. They’re called fire ants because of the way their bite feels when they latch onto you. In fact, fire might be preferable.

I’m speaking from experience here.

Let me tell you about it: As I mentioned earlier, I was 15, and - because of Debbie and Dianne, the 16-year-old blonde twins who lived next door - I was always trying to appear “cooler” than I actually was (or am, for that matter).

I was no more successful at it then than I am now, but fortunately I was 15 and an idiot (the two are inseparable) and therefore didn’t realize what a dork I was (or am, for that matter).

It was getting on toward evening, the Arizona sun edging toward the mountaintops on the horizon. The sky was burnishing to a deep, bruised ocher, and I was sitting on the back of a pickup truck with Debbie or Dianne, I don’t remember which.

Roy Orbison was oozing softly from the truck’s AM radio and nobody’s parents were watching. Debbie (or Dianne) and I were both wearing T-shirts and cutoffs; about all the clothes you can stand in Phoenix in July.

Slowly screwing up my courage, I edged closer to Dianne (or Debbie), and executing the ever-so-subtle “yawn & stretch” maneuver - the signature smooth move of teenage Romeos from the beginning of time - I slipped one arm around her waist.

Ah-hah! I was there and she (Debbie or Dianne) wasn’t pulling away in disgust and/or revulsion! Amore was within my grasp!

And then the ant ... the Arizona ant ... the Arizona fire ant ... the Arizona fire ant that had crawled up the leg of my cutoffs ... WAY up the leg of my cutoffs ... bit down. Hard.

Decorum and the fact that this is a family newspaper prevent me from saying exactly where.
Let’s just say my thoughts of romance vanished faster than a box of donuts in a police station.
One of the interesting things about fire ants is, once they bite, they don’t let go. Ever.

By the time I managed to extricate the fire ant from my - um - self, any hope I ever had of looking cool in front of Debbie (or Dianne) had vanished forever.

My family moved back to Detroit a few weeks later and I couldn’t have been happier about it.

So, winter, (remember our original topic, way back at the top of this column?) do your worst. Freeze the ground ten feet down.

I may be sick of you, but I won’t complain. Just kill those ants.

Comments

[reii]

Ugh... Just happened to read this sitting next to a window looking out onto my SNOW COVERED yard. On April 7th. Spring break. Believe it or not, this entry actually made me miss AZ. A little.

[auntconi]

hahaha ~ still funny a year and a half later ~ soooo funny!!!