Home Invaders

I hate doing dishes. I would rather scrub my toilet than spend an hour hovering over a hot sink scrubbing dried scrambled egg off of what is supposed to be a nonstick pan. Unfortunately, we do not have a dishwasher in the house we currently live in. Therefore, the dishes are a constant thorn in my side. Either one side of the sink is piled high with dirty dishes, or the other is drowning in clean, but drying dishes.

When we moved into the house, I thought I was trading up; I was losing a dishwasher, but gaining an in-house, and not coin operated, washer and dryer. How naive I am sometimes . I underestimated the number of dishes Goose could produce each meal:

"I need a new spoon for my cheerios."
"Use the one you have for your oatmeal."
"No, it's yucky!"
"Lick it clean."
"I dropped it."
"Can I have some milk?"
"Did you finish your juice?"
"No"
"Finish your juice."
"But I just want milk in the green sippy cup."
et cetera. ad nauseum.

Not long after we moved in, I found if I wasn't drudging through the clanking pile of dishes, which seemed to multiply spontaneously, I was dreading the task and planning ways to avoid doing it. I realized that the state of my sink is a litmus test for how the rest I feel about life in general. Sadly, my sink was almost never shiny, until they came.

One by one and two by two those nasty little sugar ants started taking over my kitchen. If I left the dinner dishes piled in the sink overnight and the next morning thousands of ants (ok, maybe twenty) would be devouring dried blueberry smears off of Little E's highchair tray or nibbling on a crumb of toast. I was angry at the ants; not because they were disgusting, but because they were a visible manifestation to the world of my poor housekeeping skills. I imagined that next the cockroaches would descend, then rodents and finally child protective services. My pride smarted at the ants appearance - surely no self-respecting SAHM would ever live in a manner that would invite ants.

My resolve to shine my sink each day hardened. I washed each dish almost before it touched the stainless steel. The ants multiplied. This was war. Ants traps, poison, and the cleanest sink this side of the Potomac (ok, probably not. but cleaner than my sink has been in a long, long time.)

Dishes became my number one cleaning priority. And as they did an amazing thing started happening. The dishes took up less and less of my time. I cannot explain this. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it has a twilight zone-like eeriness about it.

The ant traps have been out for 15 days. Supposedly, after 10 days the entire colony dies from lethal doses of candy-coated borax. Our ants keep coming in droves. But, my sink is still shiny and my knees are more raw from the time I spend on the floor playing with my kids than my hands are chapped from the dish water. Sugar ants: blessing or blight?