The things that make me nostalgic for my teaching days are not always the things you might expect.
A few days ago, I woke up to find that my home had been invaded by ants. They were coming up between the wooden boards of our kitchen floor in multiple places, as well as through cracks in windowsills. We’ve had ants in our house before but never in this quantity or with this sort of initiative. These ants were organized and determined. They’d already made it into the bottom of the pantry and inside the bags of cat food and dog food. Of course, I didn’t realize this until after I’d fed the dog and the cat, thus transferring several of the ants to new locations. It wasn’t until I was feeding my dog Uno his kibble with one hand and holding my indoor cat Indie back with the other hand* that I saw the ants. At that point, they were hard to miss because they were crawling up my arms. *Note: Uno is twelve-and-a-half-years-old and sometimes decides he’d rather eat from my hand than his bowl, whereas Indie is one-year-old and will eat anything from anywhere at anytime.
I couldn’t find our ant traps, so I put the bags of kibble in the freezer to kill the ants inside them and called my mom, who lives next door and brought over some ant traps. (Mom to the rescue!) The ants ignored the traps, however, choosing instead to carry pieces of cat food to a crack in the floor where they realized the food was too big to fit through the hole and then congregated to have a meeting about it. While they were meeting, I sprayed them with some Windex that was handy. It didn’t kill them, but it made them mad, which was somewhat satisfying. Then I used toothpicks to make ramps into the ant traps to try to make it easier for the ants to get inside, but they didn’t fall for that either and just kept carrying kibble around the floor and being mad about the Windex.
Then I remembered that I hadn’t fed our half-wild fox, Finley, so I went out back with some dog kibble and fruit for her. Our outdoor cat, Meow-Man, followed me and started eating Finley’s food. She let him. I chased Meow-Man off because he is a well-fed cat who gets two meals a day, plus treats, and I suspect he is probably the reason why I found a squirrel head in my carport TWICE this week. (Yes, just the head. This isn’t the type of headcount I’m accustomed to. Either Meow-Man is killing squirrels or someone is sending me a very confusing and gross threat.) So, I guarded Finley while she ate her breakfast, then made sure Meow-Man followed me back to the house. Then I went inside, Windexed some more ants, and finally made my coffee.
As I stood there, impatiently waiting for the coffee to brew, I realized that the morning’s events had made me feel more like a 7th grade teacher than I have in a long time.
- Unexpected/unpleasant surprise that disrupts the day’s plans? CHECK – ant invasion
- Differentiation? CHECK – hand-feeding the dog
- Borrowing supplies from a co-worker? CHECK – Mom brings ant traps
- Accommodations? CHECK – toothpick ramps for ants
- Discipline? CHECK – kept Meow-Man from bullying Finley
- Strange messages that may or may not be threatening? CHECK – squirrel heads
- Dealing with multiple crises before 8:00 a.m. without adequate caffeine? CHECK
Hats off to all my teacher friends still showing up every day for the students. You’re superheroes. I wish you a week of well-behaved animals, few ants, and absolutely no severed squirrel heads.
Carie Juettner 