The first firm memory I have from childhood is of my dad wading across our lawn to go visit my grandmother in her mobile home. Back then, we lived near Galveston, Texas, right along the coast, in a hideous, tiny mobile home that was raised up about 4 feet on tiny stilts. This was necessary to get above flood level, as was made plainly evident during this episode. It was right after some big storm, and the waters made it look like our house was situated in the middle of an ocean. But instead of a nice looking ocean, the water was dark and murky, full of branches and leaves.
Also, there were huge scary blackish patches that floated on top of the water. My mother explained to me that these were 'ant rafts,' entirely displaced fire ant mounds that survived the flood by cheating physics and surface tension by linking up into huge masses. In my mind, this was the scariest thing I had ever heard of in my entire life. Fire ants already were mean and hurt like hell whenever you got near them, but now they could defy water? Like, they could be marching on our house right now. They don't have their land anymore so now they want our house. And how could we stop them? (I had a vivid imagination as a child.)
******
This morning I woke up at 5:32 in the morning with a sneeze. Which was weird, because how many times does a sneeze wake you up? I was very disoriented, but figured "whatever, get back to sleep, you're burning precious nighttime hours." When I went back to sleep, I had this really vivid dream where I got this tattoo on my shoulder, but it started itching a whole lot, so I started trying to scratch it, but then the tattoo would move around on my body and I could never reach it - I just kept scratching all over.
******
My mom says that the reason I have that flood/ant thing as my first memory was probably her fault. She really fed my ant fear a little bit too much back when I was a kid. We had moved to Texas when I was about one year old, from Chicago where I had been born and where my mom had lived basically her entire life. She had never been out in the country really and wasn't really wise to things like fire ants and whatnot. Shortly after we moved in, my mom and her sister had set me and my cousin down under a tree to play with some blocks and then stood over to the side to talk. Apparently they had set us down near some fire ants, which proceeded to live up to their name. It only took about a minute for them to swarm very convincingly over both of us. After that, my mom had a near pathological fear of fire ants and kept a constant vigil against our lawn with some high quality pesticides. And I totally soaked up all of that fear.
******
In my dream, I decided to take a shower to try and wash off the tattoo and get rid of the itching, since I figured that even if I couldn't reach it with my hands, water would get to it. Instead, the tattoo moved up my body and under my hair. And it really hurt, so I started scratching my head. Like, hard.
Suddenly I woke up, and realized that I was totally scratching the hell out of my head. Why? Because there were ants in my hair. Not too many, maybe five or six, but as I've so carefully illustrated here, I can't stand ants. And suddenly they're all in my bed? I hop out, run to the bathroom, shrieking like a little girl all the way, and rid myself of all these tiny alien entities all running around my body. Total count of ant population reduced by me: 12.
Now what to do about the bed?
******
As most people who knew me in college know, I had a very specific manner of getting my computer programming done. I would spend a lot of time figuring out in my mind exactly how I wanted it done, then I would take on the whole thing in one fell swoop, programming for hours at a time, fueled only by massive quantities of Pixi Sticks and Dr Pepper. And I mean, massive quantities. I could burn through a 12 pack in less than two sessions, and I had an entire desk drawer devoted to bags of Pixi Sticks.
Sophomore year I lived in a basement dorm room, just below ground level. My computer desk was right next to the window that looked out on all the passing feet of the students on the lawn. It was right after the first cold spell of the year, sometime in November if I recall correctly. I had left mid-programming session to hit the bathroom and got distracted talking to someone down the hall. When I came back to program, I downed a Pixi Stick and took a swig of Dr Pepper. Only there was something in the Dr Pepper. Yes, the ants had made it into the room, drawn in by the warmth and the emanating sugar waves my desk was giving off.
I used to count that moment when I realized that I had just drank a bunch of ants as the most disturbing moment of my life.
******
I return to my bed, all the lights blazing now, to eradicate any further traces of ant infestation. Careful examination finds 5 more ants secreted amongst the pillows and blanket. And one more on the alarm clock. Further exploration of the entire room and window yields no more ants. I spray down the window with pesticide just to make sure. It is by now 6:30 and I realize that I might as well take a loss on getting anymore sleep tonight.
I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. While I'm waiting for it to get warm, suddenly the urge to sneeze comes on again, and I give in to nature.
And I sneezed up an ant.
We have a new winner for the most disturbing moment of my life.
Thank you and goodnight.
Also, there were huge scary blackish patches that floated on top of the water. My mother explained to me that these were 'ant rafts,' entirely displaced fire ant mounds that survived the flood by cheating physics and surface tension by linking up into huge masses. In my mind, this was the scariest thing I had ever heard of in my entire life. Fire ants already were mean and hurt like hell whenever you got near them, but now they could defy water? Like, they could be marching on our house right now. They don't have their land anymore so now they want our house. And how could we stop them? (I had a vivid imagination as a child.)
******
This morning I woke up at 5:32 in the morning with a sneeze. Which was weird, because how many times does a sneeze wake you up? I was very disoriented, but figured "whatever, get back to sleep, you're burning precious nighttime hours." When I went back to sleep, I had this really vivid dream where I got this tattoo on my shoulder, but it started itching a whole lot, so I started trying to scratch it, but then the tattoo would move around on my body and I could never reach it - I just kept scratching all over.
******
My mom says that the reason I have that flood/ant thing as my first memory was probably her fault. She really fed my ant fear a little bit too much back when I was a kid. We had moved to Texas when I was about one year old, from Chicago where I had been born and where my mom had lived basically her entire life. She had never been out in the country really and wasn't really wise to things like fire ants and whatnot. Shortly after we moved in, my mom and her sister had set me and my cousin down under a tree to play with some blocks and then stood over to the side to talk. Apparently they had set us down near some fire ants, which proceeded to live up to their name. It only took about a minute for them to swarm very convincingly over both of us. After that, my mom had a near pathological fear of fire ants and kept a constant vigil against our lawn with some high quality pesticides. And I totally soaked up all of that fear.
******
In my dream, I decided to take a shower to try and wash off the tattoo and get rid of the itching, since I figured that even if I couldn't reach it with my hands, water would get to it. Instead, the tattoo moved up my body and under my hair. And it really hurt, so I started scratching my head. Like, hard.
Suddenly I woke up, and realized that I was totally scratching the hell out of my head. Why? Because there were ants in my hair. Not too many, maybe five or six, but as I've so carefully illustrated here, I can't stand ants. And suddenly they're all in my bed? I hop out, run to the bathroom, shrieking like a little girl all the way, and rid myself of all these tiny alien entities all running around my body. Total count of ant population reduced by me: 12.
Now what to do about the bed?
******
As most people who knew me in college know, I had a very specific manner of getting my computer programming done. I would spend a lot of time figuring out in my mind exactly how I wanted it done, then I would take on the whole thing in one fell swoop, programming for hours at a time, fueled only by massive quantities of Pixi Sticks and Dr Pepper. And I mean, massive quantities. I could burn through a 12 pack in less than two sessions, and I had an entire desk drawer devoted to bags of Pixi Sticks.
Sophomore year I lived in a basement dorm room, just below ground level. My computer desk was right next to the window that looked out on all the passing feet of the students on the lawn. It was right after the first cold spell of the year, sometime in November if I recall correctly. I had left mid-programming session to hit the bathroom and got distracted talking to someone down the hall. When I came back to program, I downed a Pixi Stick and took a swig of Dr Pepper. Only there was something in the Dr Pepper. Yes, the ants had made it into the room, drawn in by the warmth and the emanating sugar waves my desk was giving off.
I used to count that moment when I realized that I had just drank a bunch of ants as the most disturbing moment of my life.
******
I return to my bed, all the lights blazing now, to eradicate any further traces of ant infestation. Careful examination finds 5 more ants secreted amongst the pillows and blanket. And one more on the alarm clock. Further exploration of the entire room and window yields no more ants. I spray down the window with pesticide just to make sure. It is by now 6:30 and I realize that I might as well take a loss on getting anymore sleep tonight.
I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. While I'm waiting for it to get warm, suddenly the urge to sneeze comes on again, and I give in to nature.
And I sneezed up an ant.
We have a new winner for the most disturbing moment of my life.
Thank you and goodnight.
1 comment:
Oh. My. God. That's freaking nuts. Wow.
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