Bug Spray

Well, I've got ants (and, no, not in my pants, but thanks for asking). It seems colder weather has compelled them to find warmer locations, like various corners of my home, which in turn has compelled me to load up on various chemicals and mechanisms for exterminating these millimeter nomads.

It was as I scavenged through my own random, forgotten bottles of poisonous compounds and then fervently yet meticulously read the labels of each product Wal-Mart offered in its bug extermination aisle that I realized how surprisingly vicious and bitter we've become with unwanted pests. If you haven't ventured down this aisle in some time, allow me to share some taglines and guarantees proudly displayed on the products found there:

"Kills on contact!"

"Destroy the entire colony!"

"They enter to eat, they leave to die!"

Kill. Destroy. Die. Man, are we pissed or what? I felt suddenly enraged at these ants for daring to set their little appendages on my bathroom floor. I mean, literally, it's not enough that we disable the insect -- God no, we want to bring them death. And not just them but their whole family -- sister ant, brother ant, mother ant, father ant, aunt ant (pardon the pun) -- and their friends and their neighbors and their mayor and their whole colony. This isn't simply getting rid of the pest, folks; this is delivering an insect holocaust -- with a smile, no less.

And then my inward cheers to "kill, kill, kill" transitioned to wonderings of why it's socially acceptable for us to instantly and vilely annihilate a whole clan of creatures with a spray, but it's criminal to kick a dog. ...I guess this is where I'm supposed to give a disclaimer that I don't promote cruel treatment of animals -- but maybe I do. I mean, I am massacring an entire population within my household and wherever else they drag the chemical disease as they "leave to die."

Not that I decided against spraying the holy crap out of my plumbing and moulding...