Tag: ants

“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.

1. The ants got into the cereal at the factory and become part of cereal.
2. The ants got into the cereal during transportation.  Possibly inside a container on a ship.  Because ants swim.
3. The ants got into the cereal at the supermarket.  In that case, we have some complaint letters to write.
4. 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.
5. The ants find a way into our fridge, and somehow survive a near zero temperature.  This is evolution.  Ice age ants.
6. 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.
7. The ants were already swimming inside the milk carton!
8. 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.