One Down...Fifty Billion More To Go....

"Hey! Hey! Come quick,"hubby shrieked causing us all to literally drop our first morning drinks and run panicked into the kitchen."They're everywhere...everywhere,"he continued to screech. He's working way too much,I think quietly to myself as I surreptitiously scan the walls for pink elephants or hairy spiders wearing tutus."Calm down,lovey"I comfort as to one of my children,"Who exactly is everywhere?" Just as I felt the first tiny itch on my foot...then another....then another.Looking down,at first it appeared as if the lino was swirling."Oh look! Ants,Mummy!"yelled Bat Boy in delight.Ants. What with all the screeching,I thought hubby might have inadvertently picked up the wrong briefcase at work and opened it this morning to find some human body part in it,wrapped in newspaper."Did you know about this?" interrogated hubby."Know?" I question."About the ants?" a smidgen too haughtily said for my liking."Oh yeah...."I sighed,"Two...maybe three days.I've decided to let them stay as I think they go nicely with the furnishings ....and they're great listeners."I swear I hear tiny screams as he brings his foot down savagely and takes out the equivalent of half the populous of Tokyo.Not one to be ignored my sarcasm sought new shores."Please can you sort this out.I hate ants." as He,the only practising Buddhist of the household,stomps his slippered feet down again....oops there goes Nakano.......and saunters out to the genkan,the dead and dying impaled on his heels.

I actually don't really mind ants.I mean,I wouldn't like to be tied down on a bed,smeared head to toe with honey and then have a few thousand of the little black critters set loose on me.And they don't taste too great on cereal either.Bit too crunchy for my liking but...in the grand scheme of things,there are a hell of a lot worse creepy stuff to contend with during the hot and humid summer months.Top of my cringe list are cockroaches.Now we are talking nasty...nasty...nasty.They are built like tanks.Built in sensors that  exceed any man made technology.They fly.They can live for ten years on a grain of sugar or something like that.You whack them with a slipper,spray enough poison on them to take out an elephant,suck them up high powered Dysons and they still live.If a deadly plague ravished the planet,only two things would survive....cockroaches and my MIL.I used to feel really bad about every cockroach I managed to kill.As I stood,watching it trying to scale the toilet bowl in one last futile attempt before I dropped the wad of loo paper and flushed it's body to oblivion,I felt a twinge of compassion for this creature.I mean after all,it was only trying to survive...just like me.Was it a Daddy?Out foraging for food with a Mummy and four little cockyroaches waiting apprehensively at home for his return.Maybe his youngest was the runt of the kids,born with deformed legs and not meant for this life long.Maybe this cockroach now cascading down through a watery tunnel to the seaside with absolutely no sunscreen on,was seeing it's whole life flashing before it.Would it's last flashback be of Tiny Cockroach's face peering through a window,lit up with joy at Daddy's return? Would other cockroaches in the community come running to help the widow and her young kids? What if one of the kids grew up to be a powerful leader in the cockroach world and vowed to bring down the murderer of his late beloved Dad?

" Mummy!"tugged Bat Boy at my arm,mercifully breaking my train of thought."I've got a great idea!Let's make an ant zoo,"he gushes holding up with pride his beetle box now revamped with a tiny pot of strawberry jam upon which a most impressive battle was being waged."I think that's a great idea," I smile,running my hand across his head."Why don't you put it in Daddy's reading room where they'll be safe."