Attack of the Ants

A few days ago my wife made some really outstanding chocolate cookies. Last night I had a few (*cough*) in my office. Apparently some crumbs went "rogue" and fell, unnoticed, behind some boxes scattered on the floor.

Today I grabbed a sandwich for lunch. A green pepper fell out of it and was on the floor; when I noticed it had fallen, I leaned down to pick it up and recoiled - ants! Dozens of 'em, Mr. Rico!

I prepared to engage when I realized - one or two random ants finding my green pepper, I could see. But it had only been there a few minutes. Where had they come from? I cast my gaze farther afield - and there, swarming in their hundreds, were little ant-mountains on top of the cookie fragments. Ewww!

This is why God invented little handy battery-powered vacuum cleaners, however. A few minutes of cleaning (which the floor needed, anyway) and the little ant raiding party was no more. I'll be engaging in tactical ant-squashing over the next few hours, undoubtedly, as ants-come-lately follow the scent trail to where the cookies used to be. Wish me luck as I commit to battle.

We fight the ant infestation we have, not the ant infestation we'd like to have.

UPDATE:

Q. What does my office have in common with the Pink Panther movies?
A. "Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant dead ant dead ant...deadantdeadantdeadantant"

UPDATE 2:

A small squad of six highly-trained, stealthy ants crept onto the battlefield. Ignoring the corpses of their fallen brothers-in-arms, they ant-handled one last remaining crumb onto their collective shoulders and started maneuvering it out of the conflict zone. They didn't see the shadow looming. They didn't see the pencil descending like the hand of an angry God. All they saw was the carpet suddenly looming large as they were crushed, as though beneath the awful weight of their own crime.

Don't steal my food.