Went to Tiff’s Treats website to explore my potential happiness. The first online foray with ordering, I’d chosen three separate small six-packs of cookies to be boxed individually, as I’d planned on dropping off two as gifts today, and of course, I needed some warm cookie joy myself.
But the online ordering system had a glitch and I had to start over. By the 3am time it was now, I must have not seen that I had signed up for an Elite Membership and free delivery for a year with various bonus attributes but the part about the three boxes had not been re-entered.
Stayed up a little longer doing research and then signed off. Some six hours later, the doorbell rang at 11am promptly as planned, and I was delighted to bring the box inside and begin my individual gift prep. But there was just one box.
I e-mailed the store, as they had sent me multiple (4!) text messages and e-mails, each confirming receipt of my order and forthcoming delivery and should I need to reach out to them, here was how. I explained there were not three individual boxes and in checking their records there was nothing on the Special Instructions section. Sleepyhead here had forgotten to re-enter the instructions, but welcome, welcome to me now that I was going to be Elite for the next year.
Elitely, I offered to come get the boxes and they said they’d alert the store. I should not have bothered. I made myself a cup of hot tea, settled in with two cookies, and started to read “The Eagle” online and…when I awoke an hour later, at my desk, in my chair, it was clear that ants can smell. I’d made my way over to the kitchen counter, just in time to see two tiny ants cross over the top of the huge Tiff’s Treats box. My heart sank.
Opened the box and discovered an art farm inside, snacking away on level one of the snickerdoodles…others had made their way down to the M&M level (both were gift intentions)…and I quickly closed the box. They were happy with what was about to be their final meal.
Grabbed a grocery sack, threw the box in, tied it tightly off at the top, and out to the trash can I went. Sigh. Total waste of effort for two warm cookies. Actually thought my troubles were over. Nope.
Seems like the aroma of the warm cookies had remained long after they had been removed from the kitchen, and since ants can smell…they ventured in to search for themselves what fortunes lay ahead of them. I should have known better. Truly.
Tonight, I’d just finished a blog post on my disapproval of the Emmy Awards broadcast and was just about to settle in to write on an entirely different topic when I noticed a light brown shadow in the living room floor under my chair at my second desktop (the dining table). I swear it looked like a perfect square dance circle, about 10 inches in diameter. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was…ants. Sugar ants, pharaoh ants, crazy ants…call them what you will, there they were.
The more I stared the more they panned out in the circle, now about 15 inches in diameter. It reminded me of the June Taylor Dancers on the old Jackie Gleason Show in their symmetry!
Jumping to action, I grabbed the closest agent of death I could find…Glade…a can of Glade, linen scent. And I sprayed the you-know-what out of them. Not that it solved my problem, but it gave me time to stomp on their woozy little selves, having made themselves so at home on my carpet.
I did my fire-and-rain dance true to my Cherokee heritage to obliterate the nasty invaders with the bottoms of my shoes. Then, I grabbed the unused but at-the-ready vacuum cleaner to now whoosh them away in a trapped thick paper bag. Vrooooooooom. Had them up and gone before they knew what had happened to them.
And then I vacuumed some more of the living room that had caused me to roll out the vacuum and place it where I could find it readily when the spirit moved me to vacuum. Replaced the bag, wrapped and sealed the old one, tied it up in a plastic trash bag, inside another trash bag and took it outside to the garbage can. I’m thorough, if not inattentive to what problems with missing weatherstripping at the front door can do. That's on my to-do list to address this week.
The clean linen scent remains, even though the cookies and their happy memory are long gone. I apologize to the two sweet senior friends who had no idea they were going to be surprised today. Just glad I had not reached out to them about it. The surprise was on me.
Now that I’ve vacuumed the entire living room and nearby paths and replaced the old bag with a new one, I feel fairly accomplished over here. This calls for a cookie! Oh wait. Nevermind. Just remember, ants can smell!
Promise to bring you some cookies that next time I come your way, in a nicely airtight container, as there is no doubt it is You that serves a sweet surprise.
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