The Man from Ant

Story Submitted by William:

I went over to Linda's house to watch a movie.  We had been friends for a while and had only recently discussed the idea of becoming something more.  When I arrived, bearing flowers and a bottle of wine, she seemed happy to see me, but not because I had brought her gifts.

"Good, you're here," she said, "You can help me take care of the ants."

"Ants?"

Oh yes.  The ants.  She had a small country's worth of ants in her kitchen, and she wasn't happy.  She said, "It's my roommate.  He leaves food out all the time, like he takes a bite out of a slice of bread, then leaves it on the counter.  He gets upset if I bag it up or put it in the fridge or throw it away, so now we have ants.  Help me get rid of them."

I asked, "Do you have any traps?"

She said, "One, but I'd prefer to not use it.  I don't want them dead, I just want them gone."

I said, "That will be difficult.  Maybe we could try tempting somewhere else, but that'll take a while, as long as you have a source of food for them in here."

She said, "What about scooping them up and putting them outside?"

"Go for it."

"No.  You."

I don't have a problem with ants, but I didn't much feel like transporting hundreds of them, by hand, into a backyard.  That's not what I had signed up for that night.

She said, "Just for a little bit, then we can watch that movie.  I just want to make a dent, if nothing else."

We grabbed pieces of paper and scooped them up as best as we could.  Thing was, for every bunch we relocated, more and more came to take their place.  After 15 minutes, it didn't look like we had made any progress at all.

Linda laughed in hysteria.  "They just keep coming!  They're just everywhere!"

I offered, "Why don't we run out and grab some traps?"

She said, "Then we'll be scooping up piles of dead ants.  Is that what you really want?"

I said, "If they're dead, then they can't keep crawling back."

"You might be a murderer," she said, "And I don't want to kill them.  They're parents, children, and babies.  This is natural for them.  I just want them out of here."

We scooped up more of them for the better part of an hour, and it finally looked as though we had made some progress.  She turned to me and said, "Thanks.  I'm going to go take a shower now, so I guess that's a night."

I said, "I'll wait for you to shower.  We can still watch the movie."

She shook her head.  "But you touched the ants, too.  I'm not going to want to hang out if I'm clean and you're all ant-saturated."

I asked, "Then I'll take a shower after you."

She frowned and dropped her shoulders, obviously not being keen on that idea.  "Fine," she said.

We both showered, and I put on the movie.  She moved as far away as she could away from me on the couch, and we watched it in awkward silence.  When I did move a bit closer, she switched seats to another sofa.

Once the movie was over, I took it, said goodnight, and I haven't hung out with her alone again from that day to this.