Friday the 13th

Grease Ants Invade the Feedlot

The old feeder won't take any chances tomorrow. It will be Friday the thirteenth. You can call it a superstition, but it is a great excuse to put off any sort of less desirable activity. It happens so seldom that you can't abuse it.

For example: If the dentist says "We can start that root canal for you on Friday.", once in a while you can just say "Friday the 13th? I don't think so. What about next month?" They might roll their eyes, but you will get a stay of execution.

I'm actually able to use this ruse on myself. In my head, the reasoning goes like this: "I really need to mow the yard, but I'd probably cut off my foot doing it on Friday the 13th. Mañana. Me voy a mowiar mañana." Thats right, sometimes I think in a sort of pidginized Spanish.
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The bad luck is already starting. I went to wash the dishes this afternoon. There was a trail of excruciatingly tiny grease ants leading from a wall outlet over the counter to a dirty spoon. I'll bet they have a big nest under the slab where the plumbing goes through. Black pepper deters them, but you need chemistry to kill 'em.

I snapped the picture above, with the match for scale. The dots in the background is the screen pattern in the ersatz butcher block Formica on my counter.
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Grease ants should not be confused with pissants. The antics of the hardy Nobel pissant keep Northern Europeans amused through the long winters.
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Update: From AP Chicago - "More than 120 people who ate from the same booth at the Taste of Chicago food festival last week became ill, at least nine of them with salmonella poisoning and 10 who were hospitalized" The culprit was the Pars Cove Persian Cuisine booth. Even though Max Pars looks more Chicago that Tehran, why anyone would partake of food prepared by Iranian strangers is beyond me.

I suppose these poisoned Chicagoans wanted to be PC. We wouldn't want to offend the Iranians, would we? I don't know, but Max probably has Mexicans doing the actual cooking, like most restaurants these days. Either way, I don't trust them.

I hope blogger Chicago Ray didn't eat any of the tainted Ju-Jak Kabob. He has a post about Friday the thirteenth right here.