The bugs of October

I am in the 60th grade, and until yesterday, I never knew that ants could freeze to death.

They can. I went to the refrigerator for some ice and, reaching for the freezer door handle, I saw ants crawling around the sides of the door. I pulled the door open, and ants – little black ones – were crawling around INSIDE.

With ants, I always look first to see if I can tell where they are coming from. I saw a few ducking in and out of a seam, between the actual hard plastic structure of the freezer box and the white material that covers the refrigerator to make it look attractive. As you may be guessing, we are not talking about a top-of-the-line refrigerator.

The ants were arrayed across the entire width of the freezer box, but had not ventured in very far, except a dozen or so who had set off across the ice trays. These ants were dead. Against the white of the trays and the ice, they looked like crumpled, motionless explorers as seen from an airplane above the tundra.

There were two trays. I carried them to the sink and inverted them. The ant explorers slid right off. That was interesting. I thought they might have frozen to the ice. I ran water over the ice, a quick rinsing away of teeny ant tracks, if any.

I went to the hallway bathroom for the ant spray. I had left it there last week after a small invasion in and around the bathtub. October is a time of vigilance in Southern California. The days have been warm – even hot – and windy, with low humidity, so every time we step outside, we scan the horizon for smoke. In October, 2003, and again last October, we endured devastating wildfires. Inside, we constantly scan for ants. Last week, also, we found a scorpion in the house, a small one, in a large decorative bowl on a side table. First scorpion I have seen in 16 years in this house. But you have to be watchful. I had left the spray in the bathroom in the event the invaders returned.

This freezer entry seam was in an awkward position for spraying. I had an idea: I would spray a paper towel, then wipe the seam, and the rest of the ant populace across the width of the freezer. I enjoyed the idea; I thought it made up somewhat for a tiny mistake I had made on Saturday, leaving the car lights on all afternoon. We discovered it in the evening when we were about to go out and . . . well, that's another story.

Karen had been outside watering, and when she came in I called her over to "see something unusual." She took one look, immediately picked up the sprayer and aimed it at the entry seam. I protested, showing her my paper towel idea, but Karen is no-nonsense about bugs. She fired, carefully, to be sure, but there were drips to wipe away. Then we found more ants on the door itself, around the edges and a few on the storage shelves. Karen removed all this material and blasted those ants a good one. We carefully wiped down the door and let it air awhile. I put the spray in the corner by the sink, in case we needed it again in a hurry.

We have spiders, too, but no tarantulas yet, thank God. A tarantula once trapped me in a bathroom for half an hour until I was rescued. No solpugids, either. I lived in an adobe house for 20 years and you could count on several solpugids every summer and fall. A solpugid is like a giant cockroach, only segmented, like an ant, and the very devil to kill. You never want to see one peeking over your windowsill.