An Adventure to Remember

When I attended my writing class, my teacher was always asking me to write about how I "felt" about events and people and so on. So i tried to reveal my sentiments about a rather dramatic event that took place at my daughter's house.


The Day We Tore the Ceiling Down

We had noticed a large number of carpenter ants wandering through the rooms of our daughter’s house. From the bedrooms to the family room, they were everywhere. They bit us on our feet and jammed in a pile under the hot water heater. Closer inspection revealed that they were nesting under the insulation on the ceiling of the laundry room.
What to do? Being desperate, my son-in-law George decided to take decisive action. Stationing me in the center of the room, holding open a large black garbage bag, he began pulling down the ceiling tiles and revealing the nesting space underneath. The ants and eggs cascaded down in great clumps, missing the open garbage bag and landing on George and me with disastrous results. They attacked us with a fury, biting and tearing off small shreds of skin and drawing blood. Throwing modesty to the winds, we fled into the back yard and tore off our outer garments and sprayed each other with the garden hose.
Now what? Wrapped in bed sheets, peering out through the folds, we hit upon a plan. The fire extinguisher was close at hand, and it was the work of a moment to activate the thing. “Stand back!” George cried, and began covering the ants, eggs and debris with foam. The ants tried desperately to rescue the eggs, running around in a frenzy but finally collapsing in death when the foam took effect. We scooped them up with a shovel and filled two garbage bags with ants, eggs, foam and whatever else happened to be enclosed in the fast hardening
foam. The ceiling still contained thousands of eggs and we scraped them off as best we could. We had done our best. Subsequently the house was tented and ants, termites, and mice were eliminated. Not a life-threatening event but one we well remember.
How did I feel about that? What kind of question is that? We did what we had to do. I have never regretted it. I look back upon the whole episode as a kind of adventure. I still look around for the things when I am in my daughter’s house but I never see any. I have had many adventures in my long life, but this was one of the funniest.