There’s a war going on. No, I’m not talking about the one in Afghanistan. I’m talking about the one in my house.
For several days now, a war that once was fought solely on the Dishwasher Front has boiled over. Enemy troops are now spreading far and wide, breaching our carefully laid lines of defense in the kitchen.
Even poisonous gas has proven ineffective. Toxic mists have descended on their columns in a vein attempt to keep them from reaching their objective – the now removed bottle of maple syrup.
Sure, there have been times when my son and I have celebrated our meager and rare victories. We have beat back their incursions in the dishwasher with torrents of water in a carefully planned and executed rinse cycle. When they attempted to scale the impenetrable walls of the refrigerator to seize the Cran-Grape high ground, we beat them back with a frontal assault of strategic thumb squishing.
We have even resorted to wiping their supply routes out with soap and water, trying to confuse them to the point where they scatter, only to find them marching one by one in relentless sugary pursuit.
Having been gone all weekend, I left the battle to my trusty lieutenant, Parker. Imagine my dismay when I arrived home from my weekend pass only to find the battle raging once again.
The enemy had stealthily attacked in the night, set on making their way to the pantry. They had already suffered heavy losses in previous engagements, but now they sent in their specially trained troops. I assume they were all wearing protective gear because even an all-out gas attack was ineffective in reducing their ranks. Soaked in poison they marched on, pouring from every nook and cranny in an epic assault on their syrupy, sugary objective.
We beat them back time and time again until finally, their numbers dwindled to just one or two scouts. For the moment, we had achieved victory, if only in battle, not war.
It was in this respite that I began to consider the awesome cost of war. I imagined the widows back home whose soldier ants would not be returning from the front. I thought of those who had somehow survived our brutal attacks, maimed for life, returning with just three or four legs and missing antennae. I wondered what Antington Cemetery looked like with its thousands of little white crosses, each bearing the name of a father, husband, uncle or ant (come on, you knew I would have to use that).
And I worried about what the future would hold. I thought that perhaps this incursion, this bold attack, was a payback for my seemingly innocent slavery of ants in my youth. Their antcestors, imprisoned in that little green and glass ant farm I had in my room, forever pushing sand to the surface in a fruitless attempt to reopen the tunnels that had caved in as I shook the ant farm like an Etch-a-Sketch. Perhaps this was just retribution, long overdue.
It was only then that I began to consider that maybe all of the ant kingdom were working together. Maybe these sugar ants were just the privates in a much greater army, and that behind them lay the crack teams who would eventually be deployed en masse to bring ruin to my home.
I had seen their likes in lesser numbers in Florida. The flood of fire ants that would boil over in their fury, releasing their poisons upon my weak flesh, causing my skin to burn as if covered with napalm, my itching only spreading the pain everywhere I touched.
I thought about the carpenter ants I had seen in my old house, working silently behind the scenes, weakening my own homestead as they attacked its wooden beams in ant-farm fashion, boring endless paths that compromised the structure, leaving my home in peril and my bank account severely depleted.
And I remembered the red headed ants, with their pincers of steel that would lock onto my fleshy fingers as a child, their grip so powerful and final that their head and pincers would remain on my finger even as I removed their body.
I have come to realize that they could all be brought to bear, and while they number in the thousands, nay, millions, we are but two – Parker and I. Even if hundreds fall, more will continue to pour forth from their hiding places. like the guerillas in Vietnam, rising from their caves in the dead of the night, attacking the enemy with overwhelming force.
Yes, we won the battle of 1314 N. 182nd Place on Sunday. I can enjoy the brief satisfaction of this hollow victory, lulling myself into believing that the finality of the battle will win the war. I can choose to believe that the enemy will retreat in disgrace, never to engage in bloodshed again, finally coming to terms with their unfathomable losses, the finality of war and the folly of a life built around such sugary pursuits.
We will each rebuild our respective lives, a little wiser, a little more respectful of one another, and for the terrible cost of war.
But there will come a time, perhaps in the not too distant future, when the battle will begin anew and once again we will face the prospect of horrific war. My son will mistakenly leave a once waffle-filled plate in the dishwasher with just a wisp of spent syrup on its rim and all hell will break out. Seeing the opportunity, the enemy will pour forth once again, bent on bringing this sugary prize back to the homeland while we are caught flat-footed in the illusion of peace.
But rest assured, we will answer as we always have, armed with unflappable resolution and a can of RAID, knowing that in victory there are no winners, only losers. In the aftermath of this protracted engagement where hundreds will be slaughtered and families left to wonder why their loved ones didn’t come home, the timeless question will remain — was maple syrup really worth the cost.
In the Emerald City, planning another RAID in the future,
– Robb