Elise is eight and just about the most loving, compassionate little person I know. Laid back should be her middle name. She'll err on the side of compassion in most any situation.
She does hate one thing though. Ants. Little tiny red ones to be exact. They invaded our house this summer and apparently they like to bite her. A lot. She showed me her leg and they bit her 5 times in a one inch diameter. Her leg was all swollen and red. She was crying.
"I hate ants!" she wailed.
"I know honey, they suck."
So she asks me what we can do to get rid of the ants. I tell her we need to buy poison. She doesn't like that idea.
Elise- "Does the poison kill them?"
Mom- "Yes. It gets into their bodies and makes them die."
Elise- "Will it get into our bodies too?" By this point she looks wide-eyed.
Silence. How do you respond? With the truth? "Yes, it gets into our bodies too, probably causing cancer and all kinds of bad stuff, but no one really talks about that."
So I change tactics.
"You could vacuum them up. Then they would be in the vacuum bag and not on you."
Elise likes that idea. She's scratching her arms because she thinks the ants have been there too. In fact, Elise sees them everywhere. Paranoid of ants, I think you would call it.
About 5 minutes later I hear the vacuum going. 10 minutes goes by and I still hear it but now she is singing a song. I can't make out what it is though. When I still hear the vacuum 15 minutes later and her little voice, I go to investigate.
Elise is sitting on the floor in the laundry room where she found a long line of ants. She is gleefully sucking them up inch by inch. She is very methodical and even goes over certain areas two or three times. The areas by her room receive a lot of attention. It's the song she is singing that cracks me up.
"I hate your guts"
"You little biting ants"
"I hate your guts"
"So I suck you up"
"In the bag you go"
"You little tiny ants"
Repeat chorus
Over and over she sings till not a nary ant to be seen...until thirty minutes later when recruitments come in and she sucks them up too.
6 comments:
That made me laugh so hard. Especially the pictures.
Best. Post. Ever.
I was floating down the Colorado River this afternoon on a kayak and these little Tamarisk beatles were everywhere - landing on me, in my hair, in my hat.
Next time I'm taking Elise and a vacuum.
We actually had the privilege of seeing and hearing Elise sing her “Ant Song” followed by an impromptu performance of "Some people can be weird in a ________ (you fill in the blank) sort of way”.
She is quite the entertainer. There is really no way to accurately describe Elise, you have to EXPERIENCE her!
You know what. This might just be funnier than Hal and Gaila's dance off post.
We have an ant-infested tree in the backyard. Have Elise bring her vacuum to Cousins' Camp.
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