The never-ending ant infestation.

We discovered ants in our kitchen about three weeks ago. After a few days, we went to Wal-Mart and bought ant stakes. A few days after that, the ants were still not gone and I found more around our shoes/catch-all table and in the bathroom. Stakes were immediately set in those locations, as well.

Fortunately, only a few days after all this, the ants generally stopped showing up and all together disappeared. Until two days ago, that is. Suddenly, they have come back in full force if we so happen to leave anything at all on the kitchen counter or in the sink. Thank goodness they've left the bathroom alone.

We left a pan in the sink that we had rinsed off after making sloppy joes (or taverns, for you Midwest folk), but some of the sauce and meat was left on it. We didn't think it'd be a problem since ants had never ventured into our sinks before, even with similar items in them. We happened to be wrong, as we quickly discovered the next morning a trail of ants going from the window sill crack where they come through from the outside, across the kitchen counter, down the pan handle, and into the pan where they surrounded the meat and tried to drag it back along said path. In addition, I found ants crawling around an old bag of marshmallows in our pantry.

Needless to say, I was not happy. My plan of action: enlist Nick to drain all the ants in the sink and then dry the dishes as I washed every single one of them, and put an ant stake in the pantry after shoving all the food items onto the other side of the shelf. The plan of action worked, until something else (we're still not sure what) lured the ants into the sink again this morning; I again washed all the dishes and still didn't see what they were after as none of the dirty dishes had ants on them and there was no rotting food in the sink. In addition, we scrubbed down the entire kitchen counter and stove, and washed the sink as a final touch.

Fortunately, ants have not reappeared in the pantry or bathroom, and have slowly diminished around our shoe/catch-all table, too.

I don't remember being this frustrated with bugs since moving from Arizona, where for the past two years we actually had scorpions start showing up on the floors and we had to be careful where we stepped without shoes on. I was even handling the flies here decently well; my fly-swatting skills seem to have improved. I'm even getting quicker at hand-clapping fruit flies, but ants are different. Scientists and/or linguists were not joking when they named it an "army" of ants.

They were back again in the kitchen tonight, those little farts, scouting around to see if there was anything on the counter. Good luck finding anything, fellas. I've got you figured out thus far, and you will not beat me.

P.S. Alvin: We watched The Ex last night, starring Zach Braff and Jason Bateman. Satisfied?