Spring time heralds the growth and blossoming of many things: dandelions in the yard, ragweed in the air, birds repeatedly bashing their heads into newly cleaned windows. Worms slither up from the soft loamy dirt. Misbehaving cats dash outside to chew up the nice grass, and run back inside to barf it up on carpet. An unmowed yard three houses down from me is currently home to hundreds of snakes, lustily engaging in the process of producing more snakes. Luckily, the snakes have been content with staying put in their serpentine den of iniquity thus far, and have left our premises unmolested (figuratively or literally).

Unlike some creatures, that is.

As mortal enemies, ants and I go way back. They invaded my room when I was seven years old. I can’t remember whether this was because I left food out, being a sloppy little kid, or whether being in the basement had anything to do with it. Whatever the case, it got so bad that I had to work the ants into the plot of my on-going Toyland adventures. Charlie Bear, Flora the mermaid, Pom-Pom and the other denizens of Toyland had wept during the forced evacuation, leaving behind some of the less fortunate Toylanders who couldn’t make it out in time for the mass fumigation. They even felt sorry for the Poo Poo people, the criminal element of the town that lived under the bed (aside: this contingent consisted of my least liked toys, which included Barbies. Though they were a permanent underclass, at least they fared better under my ownership than that of my cousins, who liked to let Barbies melt in the sun).

The horrors of that ant invasion have scarred my psyche forever. Though I know that I am much bigger than a single ant, the sheer numbers in which they aggregate are deeply disturbing. If it were up to me, I’d coat everything in the house in a sheen of Raid. Then I’d wait an hour or two and gleefully sweep up the remains of ant genocide.

Unfortunately, however, what is toxic to ants is 99.9% likely to be toxic to cats. My sister got around this by sprinkling the outside of her house with poison powder, thereby killing the ants before they even entered the house. An elegant solution, but one that won’t work with our furry bastards, whose favorite hobby as mentioned above is to dash outside as often as possible to chomp on that sweet, luscious, nausea-inducing grass. So I can’t very well coat that grass in poison - if they’re dumb enough to eat the grass as is, how will they know to stay away from toxic grass?

What I have done thus far: I have placed several ant death motels smack in the middle of their routes. Convenient, no? Alas, the ants appear to be actively avoiding the motels. I guess the free continental breakfast isn’t enough for these particular ants. I should gussy them up a bit, paint the walls, offer free internet and maybe some ant Skinemax to sweeten the deal.

I have also tried Windexing the ants. This has proven to be surprisingly effective, as the ants just shrivel up and die upon contact. It also makes the windows shiny and clear, further confusing the birds who keep trying to fly into them. It’s not the best solution, since more ants keep risking Windexy death to get at our sweet, delicious honey (now under the witness protection program). If only I could devise a time release Windex dispensing!

Another thing I have tried is sprinkling cayenne pepper along the ant trails. The ants seem to hate this even more than the motels. I watched an ant seem to contemplate whether to jump or ferry over a large patch of the cayenne. It ran out of time before it could decide (ha). I don’t think the cats are stupid enough to eat the cayenne, which is another bonus.

After the next batches of rain, I think I’ll go a little further with this cayenne pepper idea, buy a giant tub of it and construct a cayenne moat. Sure, the neighbors will think we are crazy, but it is East Lawrence and we’ll likely just blend in further.

And at least we don’t have snakes in our yard.