Ants in a Trance

When I was in 7th grade, I came down with a bad case of athlete's foot. I'm not really sure how I got it as I didn't play any sports and I never showered after gym class. In fact, the most draining physical activity I participated in was walking home from school carrying my trumpet case. Yet there I was, diagnosed with itchy, itchy tinea pedis. I found that scratching my feet with my hands did nothing so my ingenious 12-year old self came up with a solution: socks. Beautiful, beautiful socks.

I would turn a sock inside out, place it between my toes and pull it back and forth, back and forth. It was like playing a viola or a cello, only instead of creating beautiful music, I'd be rewarded with temporary relief from the fungal foot infection. My sisters thought it was gross and, to be honest, it was. I'd torment them by tossing my used socks onto their beds and laugh as they flipped out and used a broom to remove the diseased piece of fabric.

It was really gross. After a particularly violent bout of sock-scratching, it wouldn't be unusual to spot pieces of dead skin stuck to the sock. But it worked.

I was filled with ingenious solutions to physical problems like that. If my back itched, I'd lift up my shirt, place my back against the wall and squat. Up and down, up and down, each movement scratching my back better than any number of fingernails could. If my ear itched, I'd jab a Q-tip in there repeatedly. In and out, in and out. Most of my physical problems revolved around itchy parts.

Eventually, my mom caught on to my sock habit and forbid me from ever doing it again. Instead, she said, try using some tough actin' Tinactin.

It worked for my dad. Which, come to think of it, is probably how I ended up with athlete's foot in the first place.

She took a can from my dad's closet and I watched in fascination as my feet turned white when she sprayed them with Tinactin. It was like covering them with snow and, even better, it actually cooled the itching. Eventually, the athlete's foot went away and I forgot about the can of Tinactin for a few months.

I found it again during my freshmen year of high school. I had left half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the windowsill and ants were climbing all over it. Not just any old ants. Vicious, vicious Texas fire ants. I had seen the damage that those ants could do. My sister accidentally fell onto a pile of fire ants when she was three and, immediately, the ants swarmed her calf and began biting or stinging or whatever it is fire ants do. She still has the scars on her leg from that fire ant attack.

Looking for something to kill them with, I found the Tinactin in my desk. Somehow, my 14-year old brain made the connection between a spray that "cools" athlete foot and "fire" ants. I aimed at the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sprayed the Tinactin all over the windowsill. The ants turned white and stopped moving. Some ingredient in the Tinactin actually froze the ants solid! I went downstairs to tell my sisters, but by the time we got back to my room, the ants had thawed out and disappeared.

It was one of the moments of discovery that I'm sure Galileo or Newton experienced. I tried it on various insects after that. Flies, mosquitoes, ladybugs. It never worked as well as it did on fire ants though.

A few days ago, I was having a midnight snack. Delma and I have been having dinner earlier and we've been going to sleep a little later than usual because we're addicted to Mad Men so at around 11:37 PM, I got out of bed, had a handful of cashews and went back to sleep. I must have dropped a cashew or two on the kitchen floor because when I was making breakfast in the morning, I noticed a dozen or so ants crawling along in a line.

I got really excited and, in a fit of nostalgia, went searching for a can of Tinactin. I found some underneath the bathroom sink and quickly ran back to the kitchen. Things have been a little weird recently in terms of money and goals and my reasons for coming to Chicago, so I was eager to go back to a simpler time, back when I had athlete's foot and only had to worry about book reports and Algebra. I held the can above the ant parade, pressed down on the trigger and sprayed them with Tinactin.

The white cloud settled down onto the ants, covering them in a fine white mist. Immediately, all of the ants started flipping out and experiencing convulsions and spasms and seizures. Then, one by one, they each curled up into a little ball and stopped moving.

Thinking they had all just frozen, I went to take a shower. When I got out, I went into the kitchen to check on the ants. They were still not moving.

Things never really work out as well as you remember.