Ants marching

In the usual fashion, I ended 2006 with a bang. Actually it was more like a scream and a jump and a hysterical fit of tears, and it was also entirely unintended. Allow me to elaborate...

On New Year's Eve day, I went to lunch with my man-friend and his friends, one of which is his roommate, who will henceforth be referred to as "the soft one". He...wait, wha-? No, y'all, get your minds out of the gutter, he's just got a very soft personality. I wish there were another word to describe it, but there's just not. I'll introduce you sometime, you'll understand.

Anyway. The soft one drove us all to the eating establishment (it could hardly be categorized as a restaurant), so my man-friend did not bring his keys, assuming that most people keep their house key and their car key in the same place. Apparently this is not true of all humans, though, because we returned to the house to find ourselves locked out.

We'd bought some lottery tickets on the way home, so I sat down on the edge of their porch next to a planter and went to work. I began to scratch...and scratch...and then I began to scratch all over. You see, I had plopped myself right down on a fire ant bed. Even better? I'm allergic to fire ants. Down they crawled into my jeans and down my back, and, folks, you know where this is going.

I immediately jumped up, screaming, "Ants in the pants! Ants in the pants!" and leapt across the porch with my hands down my jeans like a damn fool. The guys had shimmied the garage door up about 2 feet during their break-in attempt, so I ducked inside and peeled my jeans off, screaming and thrashing to get the plague away. Finally I was rescued by my man-friend, who swatted the little buggers away and lent me his sweatpants so that I could drive home without fear of stow-aways. Which raises an important question - just how long did he stand on the porch in his boxers before his other roommate arrived? What a swell guy.

Epilogue: My butt looks like a red-and-white leopard. I've probably overdosed on Benedryl at least two of the last 3 days. But hey - now I have something to remember 2006 by, right?