In honor of my first bit of writing on here, I'll delve into an experience I had recently.

Anyone who's met me probably knows my aversion to anything of the insect or arachnid variety. In the past few days, it appears as if they've all declared war on mine and my roomie's apartment, taking no prisoners.

It began shortly after moving into our apartment actually, when we'd notice a few ants here and there in our kitchen. We bought ant spray and thought we'd taken care of the problem. I think (instead of getting rid of them) we pissed them off.

Before the ant attack though, let me back track back to a day or two ago. I was entering my building, rocking out to Paula Cole on my ipod. I put my key into the mailboxes to retrieve our mail, and opened the little metallic door. I was greeted with both mail and a huge black spider, crawling all over it. I let out a school-girl-esque shriek as I slammed the door shut. (I hate spider-licious surprises. I should tell you of the shower-spider-attack last year that ended in water everywhere, a destroyed shower rod, and a lack of a dead spider in the aftermath.)

I needed my mail though. I had to form a plan, and it would have to involve not touching or getting bitten by the eight-legged-interloper in my mailbox. I moved forward, placing my hand on the keys to open the box again. I prayed the mail would just fall out of the box this time since I rattled the box hard enough initially to jumble the mail. Sure enough, when I opened the box and leaped back, the mail fell out...along with Mr. Creepy-Crawly. He began getting his bearings as I screamed again, stomping wildly to teach him to scare me through my mailbox. Thankfully, he splattered on my mail and not my roomie's.

Fast forward to arriving home from work yesterday. I went through my usual routine of de-clothing myself (which should be more appropriately called 'peeling off my clothing' in the weather Chicago's been having). We normally feed our kitties twice a day - once in the morning before we go to work, and then again around 5-6pm, when we get home. They know this and will circle and meow if you're even minutes late.

As I grabbed Suki's food bowl and walked into the kitchen, I didn't initially notice anything wrong. I picked up the other food bowl without looking since I was busy giving Sammie kitty petting (since she never receives attention...or at least that's what she would lead you to believe). As I'm opening the can of food, I notice my foot is itchy and it feels like something is on me. I look down to see a colony of ants around my feet, swarming. I wasn't their target though - no, it was Sammie's food bowl. My eyes followed their path from the base of the kitchen sink across the walkway and to the food dish. I looked at the food dish on the counter, and sure enough, there were a few ants on it as well.

I once again shrieked (hey, have ants crawling all over your feet and try not to freak out). I killed the ants on the bowl and began trying to kill all of the ants on the floor. Sammie was no help. She was avoiding them, straining to get her food (when I put the bowl down) so as not to touch the ants either. Even after I finished my ant-ocide-rampage, Sammie was still cautious, looking about for more ants.

Now it's just waiting to see when the next attack will be...