Exploding ants

According to a comment on a recent Lifehacker post on getting rid of ants, if you feed ants Cream of Wheat, it will expand once they eat it and their stomachs will explode.

Anyway, this post reminded me of one particularly hot summer in Chicago. My roommate and I were living in an un-airconditioned apartment, so on top of walking around in our underwear most of the time, we also had the windows open all the way. It wasn't pretty, but it was necessary in order to stay in solid form.

An unfortunate by-product of keeping the windows open all the time was a fly and mosquito problem. Lucky for us, we had a few spiders in the corners! Since we were only subletting the place for the summer, we didn't much care about having a few spiders around. Plus, it was an eco-friendly way to take care of the mosquitoes.

This plan backfired. Big time. Near the end of the summer, we took a peek behind the couch where the one or two little spiders were. Instead, we found dozens of HUGE spiders! More than that, there were an equal number of egg sacs!! As we contemplated how to get rid of the spiders, several of the egg sacs burst, sending hundreds of tiny specks in every direction. I think the only thing more disgusting than one spider is a hundred tiny baby spiders swarming at you.

After our screaming subsided, we collected ourselves and hatched a plan. (no pun intended) We decided to use a two-pronged approach: spray with Raid and then immediately vacuum up the corpses and any survivors.

Ultimately, it ended with total victory. Mostly because we stayed the course.