The Battle at Sappy Stump

You are not going to believe what happened to me this morning. Craziness. Just craziness, I tell you.

Before I begin, if you didn't read my post yesterday, let me update you -- I have tree stumps in my office to be used as centerpieces at a work event. They were freshly cut down from a tree this past weekend and when I say fresh, I mean the cedar smell will knock you over and you will land in a puddle of sap kind of fresh.

So, I arrived in my office this morning. Before I even unlocked my office door I could smell the robust cedar aroma wafting strong from behind it. Those darn stumps have taken over my life.

First things first, before any emails were going to be checked or any work was going to be done, I was determined to move those blessed stumps to a different area in the room to hopefully create a less pungent woodsy perfume emitting from my doorway. Hide them away in the corner or perhaps throw them out the window, for the love of all things pine-scented.

So I opened the door, turned on the light, and sat my purse on my desk. I walked over to the table holding the stumps, grabbed two and flopped them down on the ground in the corner of my office. As soon as the stumps hit the ground with a loud "thwack!", my eyes beheld a sight of what can be described as nothing less than pure chaos.

Immediately, an army of about 20 large black ants began fleeing their home which had been the small sappy hole in the center of one of the stumps. They scurried and scrambled in every direction, and let me tell you something, those little suckers are no turtles. They can surely scoot!

So I jumped into action. And when I say jump, I mean I  jumped and stomped and did the ant squashing jig that had to resemble something like the Wii Just Dance Revolution game.

But I assure you this dance was not nearly as fun as playing on a Wii.

I killed the first battalion of ants that emerged upon my initial drop of the stump. It was a brutal battle that ended in a multitude of ant heads and legs strewn about my office carpet. I may have won the battle, but I knew that the war was far from over.

I cautiously (and holding back a gag reflex) grabbed the stump again and flipped it over with an aggressive "plop!" which prompted the next round of ants to descend from their cozy sap-filled hole and make a run for their lives. But sadly (for them) they did not make it. I stomped around until all the black specks were no longer moving and my eye was no longer twitching.

I flipped the stump a few more times to beckon the few remaining survivors out of the safety of their stump home, and was finally able to rest assured that I had fully defeated the army of ants that declared war on me this morning.

It's been about an hour of recovery from the war that was waged on me, and I still feel like there are a million little ants crawling all over me. I occasionally glance over to the scene of the battlefield and can see the bits of ant carcass and stump splinters that I failed to pick up with a tissue (I can't find a vacuum, heaven help me). I shudder when I close my eyes, reliving the massacre in which I was forced to execute lest I be overtaken by the ant colony.

Even though I am certainly traumatized from the events this morning, I also feel some sadness for the loss of the tiny ant lives. I'm not normally a bug killer. I'm more of a pick the bug up with a tissue and gently place it outside to live it's happy bug life kind of person. But this morning was a situation that could only be resolved in full blown insect execution, for the sake of my sanity and continued employment.

But let us take a moment to honor the ants who have given their life. Let these fallen not have died in vain, but that this stump, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that the centerpiece will be greatly loved of the people, by the people, and for the people. Amen.

Now excuse me while I go find a vacuum.