Yesterday, in the waning hours of the work day, I met Dr. Stevil in the hall as I was walking to the Little Girls Room. He had a small padded envelope in his hands and he waved it at me.

Jodi: are they here?!

Dr. Stevil: they are HERE!!

Jodi: don’t do anything until I get back! Please!

Fav. Xboss H: [[I have more than one fav Xboss at my POE]] What? What does he have?

Jodi: ANTS!

Fav. Xboss H: What does he have? Ants?

Jodi: yeah! like bug ants.

Fav. Xboss H: Why does he have ants?

Jodi: Why not?

Truth is, this is why Dr. Stevil received ants in the mail.

The Discovery Ant Gel Habitat from the Discovery Channel store. We’ve been waiting weeks and weeks for those ants to arrive. We were starting to get worried because Dr. Stevil is leaving at noon today for a weeks vacation in San Francisco. KK and I had no interest in adding the ants to the Gel Habitat.

Jodi: I’m not going to do it, are you going to do it?

KK: I’m not going to do it.

Jodi: Do you think they will keep a week?

KK: I’m not sure… maybe we should let them go!

Jodi: Yeah!!

Evildeb might do it tho. But, the ants arrived in time. And the three of us gathered around the habitat, jumping up and down like kids with sugar highs and full bladders. Now, the ants look PISSED OFF. Seriously pissed. They were very active. We were a bit worried about how to get them out of the little tube, and into the Habitat with spilling angry ants all over the place. So I held the lid, ready to place it back on top, and Dr. Stevil removed the test tub top and dropped the whole thing into the Habitat. And KK egged us on.

Then we picked up the directions. Turns out, we should have pre-poked holes in the gel, to help the ants get started in burrowing. Did I mention these were large RED burrowing ants. Which “can administer a painful sting.”

Dr. Stevil: If stung “administer ice to the wound.”

Jodi: And call 911 EMERGENCY POISON CONTROL HELP ME HELP!!!

Now, by this time, the ants had calmed down, so we eased the lid off so Dr. Stevil could poke a hole in the gel, with the provided, color matching, Gel Hole Pre-Poking Stick. The nanosecond we removed the lid the ants retreated back into PISSED OFF mode. So KK and I had to wave our hands and yell “HURRY HURRY PUT THE LID BACK ON OH MY GOD THEY ARE GETTING AWAY!!!” Everything is more fun with yelling.

Finally, we called on the one person we knew was brave enough to stick his hand into a plastic habitat full of stinging ants and poke holes in their gel… The Man.

Dr. Stevil: Ok, The Man, the second we remove the lid, the ants are going to try escape, so you have to be quick.

Jodi: Maybe we should stick them in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes. Slow them down.

KK: I think you are thinking of bees.

The Man: Don’t remove the entire lid, just slide back this portion here, and I will poke a hole with this pencil.

Jodi: Wow!

KK: He’s SMART!

Jodi: I know!

Dr. Stevil: One is escaping!!

KK and Jodi: Oh my god!! Oh my god!! GIT IT!! KILL IT!! DO SOMETHING!!!

The Man smacks the life out of the sneaky stinging ant. There are no Buddhists or vegans in our group, obviously.

I left The Man and Dr. Stevil planning more hole poking, KK and I had had enough of bugs for one afternoon. We had started naming the ants, but it’s going to take us while to name them all. There is Percy, Houdini, Winkerbean, Chloe, The One that Arrived Dead, and Gus… so far. I heard yelling and some more table smacking over the cube walls.

Jodi: Ok, you two… that’s enough with the ants.

Dr. Stevil and the Man: But Mom!

Total causualties? Five. Not including The One that Arrived Dead. An hour or so I received the following picture from Dr. Stevil’s phone.

“The Ants have been busy!”

Maybe some day we’ll get the test tube out of there.