Ant Attack
Khao Lak, Thailand

There can be no peace between us—between these little, tiny red ants that seem to be all over the place in my room. Not so many as to be a problem, but I notice trails of them from time to time, crawling on things I'd rather they didn't.

I went to bed last night after writing until my eyes started to blur. Half asleep, I didn't put my electronics away properly—placing them inside a waterproof dry-sack has been my habit. I awoke this morning and reviewed the table in my room, discovering the ants had made a new home out of something they shouldn't have—my camera.

A slight panic washed over me as I smooshed a dozen of them crawling all over the body of the device. Then the horror of ants pouring out of the innards of the camera, next to the lens, through a tiny hole for the microphone. More still, coming out of an even smaller opening below the lip of the zoom trigger.

I looked at the collapsible keyboard for my PDA—it too was crawling with ants. Images of ants chewing on electrical cables and the such filled my head.

Expletives. Many, many expletives.

I purged the keyboard as best I could, and am using it currently to type this, but I'm afraid to turn on the camera. If an ant gets smashed onto the lens or some other important mechanism, I could find myself in a very unhappy place.

All I can do is sit here, wait, and watch while the occasional ant or two pops out of the camera and meets a swift death at end of my finger.

How many of these little bastards are in there? The kill-count is at least three-dozen now…

Update: I crossed my fingers and powered up the camera several hours later—all seems well.

Explore photos from Thailand

Browse more entries