Let the Record Show That Val's Snout Is Closed To Pinochle Playing

"Mrs. Thevictorian? You have an ant problem."

"I don't have an ant problem."

"But they're crawling in and out of your door."

"I only work here. What do you expect me to do, run over there and stomp on them? Leave you here while I drive to the store to buy some ant spray? Call 9-1-1 to report an ant problem? Get the principal out of baccalaureate practice to come look at my floor? They've been there since this morning. Nobody has been carried away yet."

"But there are ants coming under your door."

"Maybe the scorpion will come back, and I won't have ants anymore."

"You had a scorpion? What did you call it?"

"Dead Scorpion, until it moved while I was taking a picture of it."

"Then what did you call it?"

"Oh No. Until I stepped on it, then I just called it Dead Scorpion again."

Even a final exam is not enough to hold the attention of this year's entry-level pupils. No. What's more important, finishing a test that measures how much you've learned since August, or watching ants crawl under the door and up into the rubber molding between the metal door frame and the tiles?

Once the final bell rang, I went to get the Fantastik out of my cabinet. You know, how in Daddy Daycare, Eddie Murphy says, "Wow. Goats really like pie." Well. Let the record show: Ants really dislike Fantastik.

The trail led back out of my door, around the corner of the rubber baseboard in the concrete-block alcove that leads out of my room to the hall, and hung an immediate right to go under the door of the storage room next door. I spritzed them with Fantastik. I only regret that Fantastik does not have that solid stream feature to shoot 20 feet like Black Flag Wasp Killer. So these ants felt a gentle mist of Fantastik. Then they all stopped where they stood. For good measure, I spritzed some Fantastik down in the rubber baseboard just outside the storage room door. Right there on the hall, where Val stands for four minutes every 50, observing hall traffic.

Wait! I thought I saw something dark and move-y down in that baseboard. I DID! A spider came crawling out. Wow. Spiders really dislike Fantastik, too.

These dumb ants must be a dying species. Instead of turning right when they entered my room, to get to the file cabinet drawer where The Pony stores a bag of Hershey Kisses, they went back into the baseboard. And instead of crossing the hall when they went outside my room, to get to the kitchen, which is right across the hall, a room where I'm pretty sure they store FOOD, though the pupils who eat the school lunch might disagree...they instead went into the baseboard right there by the storage room full of paper.

I have a feeling these ants are coming up from under the concrete foundation. Not in through a door or window. I hope it's not a sign of the impending overdue slippage of the New Madrid Fault.

And I certainly hope these ants didn't learn their crawling in and crawling out technique from the worms on the parking lot.

I've got to get back to work on my proposed handbasket factory. Forthwith!