Hey folks, Harry here... Well, you've probably been wondering who won the SideShow Toy ZANTI ANT contest from last month... Well, it took longer than expected to get through all the horror stories about ants. I've read stories about ants being attracted to semen, ants stinging along the anus and privates, ants causing a family to move from their home to have it demolished because the bug guys couldn't kill them all. There were also stories of epic heroic battles against the crawling terrors, but in the end... the winners appealed to simple horrors. Something that I had never thought about. Invading something that I never thought twice about ants and stingers being associated with. I haven't been able to do anything with either without thinking about ANTS for just a bit at least.
David DrakeHi Harry, love your site!
This was years ago, before we had children. It was early October; a cool crispness had descended in the air, autumn leaves were drifting everywhere, and Hot Dog! things were finally beginning to look Halloweenie.
My wife had left for her 3-to-midnight shift at the hospital, and the apartment was mine, mine, all mine! I was trying to get into the mood for the upcoming holiday, and what better way to do that than to sit through the afternoon and evening watching video tapes of a bunch of classic horror films? So with the windows wide open and cool air whipping through, I settled down for a fine afternoon filled with as many horror flicks as I could watch and as many cold beers as I could consume before midnight!
I took a long pull on my first can of Bud as I opened my logbook, where I had a handwritten listing of every movie in my video collection. I leisurely perused through it, looking at all the titles and mentally checking off which films I’d be revisiting that afternoon. When I came to “Dawn of the Dead,” I smiled and knew I’d hit numero uno on the hit parade!
As so, with a spring in my step and my entire body tingling in anticipation, I jumped up and walked over to the video shelves, and like a Baron of old, sitting in his library gently pulling a rare valued volume down from rich mahogany shelving, I lovingly plucked my relatively new, $70 VHS copy of George A Romero’s zombie classic “Dawn of the Dead” off the varnished pine shelf, and prepared to be thrilled and chilled by George and his buddies!
As I popped the tape out of the plastic box, something caught my eye, and as I started to slide the tape into the machine, I stopped and took a closer look. There was a small ant crawling across the label; if it had been on the black plastic body of the tape I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. But I did, and as I brought the tape up to flick the ant away, I saw another one. So I took the tape and walked out onto the balcony. I figured I’d knock the ant and his brother off, step on them both, and then proceed with the show.
As I flicked the one ant off, another came strolling across the top of the tape. Then another. And then another! I squatted down and tapped the tape on the cement floor. Like a Tom Savini special F/X, ants poured out of the tape! I dropped the tape at my feet and froze. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I was trapped in a nightmare as I watched hordes of black and shiny ants crawling all over the tape and spreading in a widening circle around it. I thought I’d must have OD’d on something already, that this just couldn’t be real. But it was and as my mind finally snapped back into gear, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the can of bug spray, ran back and started spraying the mass of invading ants. Soon the entire balcony floor was covered with dead and dying ants, they were everywhere, crawling in agony. And suddenly, in a panic, the thought hit me; what about my other tapes?? I dropped the spray can and ran back to the shelves, wildly grasping at the tapes that sat next to the “Dawn of the Dead” tape, checking for more ants.
To my horror, they were everywhere! These damn ants were assaulting my entire video collection! How could these things have spread so much without me knowing it? I went from frozen panic to outright rage! Like a madman, I started piling up tapes right on top of the dead ants, their bodies crunching under the stacks. As I tapped each tape on the floor, shaking it, more of the tiny insect invaders poured out. They were in my “Night of the Living Dead” tape, they were in my TV-version copies of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”! They were in my “The Outer Limits” tapes, my copy of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,” my “Star Trek” tapes!
The bastards were everywhere!
Wildly I sprayed everywhere, killing waves and waves of ants. I started getting giddy as huge clouds of the poison clogged my nostrils as I sprayed every tape. My arms started to tremble as I covered piles of marauding ants with the glorious deadly mist and watched the death throes of the damn things as they crawled off to die. I started drooling as the poison affected my brain, I was panting, all I could think about was killing these evil ants, this friggin’ army of darkness that dare to dine on my precious-s-s collection!
Soon I had pulled all the tapes off the shelves and checked each one individually. I had laid waste to the entire ant invasion. Victoriously I swept away piles of dead ant bodies with a broom. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening wiping the poisonous residue off each tape with paper towels, and replacing each one in their proper place on the shelf.
I never got through a single movie that afternoon.
-David
Alright, now that you've returned from examining your own VHS and DVD collections, and your skin has begun that psychosematic tingle of tiny ant legs crawling along the hairs of your arms... well, why don't you... Take a shower with Richard Hallock of Pollock Pines, California...
Being a bit Outer Limits fan I just had to write in. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about this. Then again so did watching the Outer Limits as a kid!
In Red Bluff CA we don't have a lot of carpenter ants or fire ants but we do have a lot of water ants. Water ants in generally do not bite. Water ants are attracted to... well water. Thus the name. Red Bluff often rivals Death Vally with summer heat in the 100-105 on average days. I think 122 was the hottest it ever got! They are very tiny and crawl under houses and along pipes. They come out in bathrooms and sinks and basically crawl around and try to nest in the walls. In dry years they move into houses as there is not enough water in the ground for them at all.
Well one very dry summer we had been having problems with the water ants invading our bathroom. They seemed very interested in the shower this year. After several bouts of spraying around the sink and shower they eventually gave up on the sink. The shower, I realize now, was washed free of the spray almost every time I used it. The shower is the kind with the bathtub on the bottom and a lever to send water up to the shower nozzle.
So one day I woke up and went into the shower and I did not really see any ants. I turned on the knobs and water started filling the bath. A few ants were washed down the drain. I thought nothing of it. The water got warm and I got into the tub and pulled the curtain. At this point some sort of Psychoesque soundtrack music should have been playing in the background. The water was finally warm so I turned the know which sent water up the pipe to the show head. ** I received a really big shock when I realized I was being showered with ants! ** Their tiny back bodies being spit out in chunks and parts all over me! Literally covered in hundreds of ant parts! Ick! I basically fell out of the shower. It was disgusting and smelled really bad. Ever squish one ant? notice how much it smells? Imagine hundreds of them on your head all squished almost at the same time.
I stumbled back into the however as soon as the last of the ants stopped oozing through the shower head. I had to get them off!
It seems there is a lot of water left in the inside of the shower head and they had crawled up the pipe to get at it.
Even after all that I still would like some Zanti Misfits! They too freaked me out as a kid. I wondered how they could make such a thing move and crawl and blink as a kid. Now I know it was stop motion animation and plastic bugs on strings. However if selected as a winner I will not keep them anywhere near the shower!
My address is different as I moved away from Red Bluff years ago.
Richard Hallock
Well folks... why don't you take a shower and pick out a film to watch this weekend... relax... the ANTS ARE NOT COMING FOR YOU TODAY.... ARE THEY??? Muhahhahahahahahahaaaa....
