Every spring, for about a week or two, we get ants in the house. They wake up because it’s spring, but don’t quite find enough food outside yet, so they come in to look for more. As soon as the ground comes to life with whatever they eat, they leave our kitchen alone again.

During that week or two, though, they can be quite annoying. We have to make sure to not leave any overripe fruit in the fruit bowl, and to keep the food compost inaccessible.

I’m pretty inured to the ants and just squish them when I find them and flush them down the drain. The kids both find the ants kind of disgusting, and complain a bit. And then one of them leaves half an apple on the kitchen counter, and is surprised when there are more ants the next morning. It’s like they sometimes just turn off their logical thinking abilities.