Stupid Ants

As part of the process of restarting the apartment, I put the coffee grinder -- which I'd disassembled and washed before leaving for Japan -- back together again yesterday morning. But I forgot to put one part back in place -- the cover to the compartment where the ground coffee goes. In my sleep-fugged state, I hit grind and walked out of the kitchen. Coming back a few minutes later, I found grounds all over the counter. Rats. I cleaned up the mess and used what little coffee had actually landed in the container to brew a cup.

So this morning, I needed more beans in the grinder. Opening the freezer for the first time since I returned (that's where I keep the coffee beans), I saw what at first looked just like the mess on the counter from the coffee grinder mishap. That's odd. No, wait a minute, those aren't coffee ground -- those are ants. Dead ones. Lots of them, all over the freezer.

I guess you have to admire their persistence, if not their intelligence. They worked their way past the freezer seal and were all over the ice bucket and various other parts of the freezer, but the cold was too much for them.

Sigh. Well, at least I didn't need ice. I brushed the frozen ants out, dumped all of the ice, and cleaned the freezer as best as I could. At least they seem to have not gotten at the coffee beans.