Today's Theme is "Ants"

I was a judge today for a high-school science fair. There were some pretty horrible projects. One was “What Kind of Music Makes My Dog Eat More?” (Answer: Nickelback.) Another was “Do Insurance Claims Due to Collisions With Deer Go Up in November?” (Answer: According to the Internet, yes!) There were a couple of good projects, though, including one in which a girl ran ants through a maze to determine whether they used pheromones or landmarks to find their way. She was somewhat surprised to find that the ants she was using used pheromones; she had read a research article in which a different species of ant was using landmarks.

When I got home tonight, I found about twenty giant ants in my kitchen sink. They were black with rust-colored abdomens. Not as big as bullet ants from Costa Rica or carpenter ants from New Mexico, but much, much bigger than the little Argentine ants you normally find in a house. I turned on the water to wash the ants down the drain, and used the dishcloth to brush a few more off the counter. I felt guilty—I don’t like killing things—but I can’t have ants in the house.

I came back an hour later, and there were thirty or so of the big ants wandering around the sink and the counter. This time when I turned on the water, they began scrambling around as if one of them had sounded an alarm. I could see where they were coming from—there was a crack between the wallboard behind the counter and the counter itself. A few ran back behind the wallboard, while I chased the others around with the dishcloth—I didn’t want to get ant-bit. When I brushed them with the dishcloth, they held on for dear life. Do the ants have a fear of death? They don’t even have a brain—just a pair of ganglia above and below the esophagus. I finally got them all washed down the drain.

My sink isn’t dirty; there are no crumbs or drops of soda to attract the ants. I barely have any food in the house. The ants don’t appear to be congregating anywhere. I remembered the science fair project and scrubbed down the counter and sink—I don’t want any pheromone trails leading ants into my kitchen.

But now there are thirty more ants in the sink. And, there’s an earwig on the floor. What the hell is going on?