A Slice of life in Southern California : A New Kind of Bachelor Party--Just Me and a Billion Ants

There comes a time in every married man’s life to prove something to himself. Or, at least, to his wife.

Call me a high-maintenance husband. My wife, Betty, calls me something else. She’s known as The Boop. I’m her boob.

I can’t help myself. Growing up, I had five sisters and never had to do much shifting for myself. The girls spoiled me rotten. Years later, The Boop taught me how to change the oil and spark plugs in my car. In our house, she’s the one with the tool kit.

On Christmas mornings, it’s Betty who’s rewiring the speakers or assembling the new exercise bike. And I’m her watchful gofer. Get the Phillips-head screwdriver, she barks, surgeon-like.

The Phillips is the one with the pointed tip, right?

But The Boop and I have a healthy give-and-take relationship. I turn her on to good books and she takes me to foreign films. I make her laugh, and she goes crazy when I write her love letters or speak Italian to her over dinner.

I love her wild streak, the dimple on her chin and her throaty voice when she answers the telephone. And the way she has tried to teach me the value of a dollar.

Not long ago, I had the perfect opportunity to save face with the woman I love, to finally prove myself as both husband and homeowner. Betty left for a month to study Spanish near Mexico City.

She left me home-- alone .

It was soon to become the summer I barely survived the wilds of suburban home management. Or, “Honey, I almost blew up our bank account.”

Before her flight, The Boop taught me everything I needed to know to keep our Carlsbad condominium running as smoothly as a cherry ’57 Chevy. We don’t have any kids, just four cats, so that part was easy. No bottles or burps, just water the plants, thank you.

As she talked, I took notes. (I’m a reporter, after all.) She showed me how to use the washer and dryer, to separate my whites from my darks, and afterward how to turn off the water spigots so I wouldn’t flood the place.

She jotted down a few easy recipes and showed me which bread at the supermarket has the lowest cholesterol. To pay the bills, she filled out the checks beforehand--and left the sealed, stamped envelopes in the study, along with those little yellow stick-em pads instructing me which day to mail what.

After years of check-bouncing bachelordom, I’m proud to say that there were no disasters. Unless you count the late-night call to Mexico City to clear up my two botched ATM withdrawals that required a raid of our savings.

Yeah, my young bride prepared me for just about everything.

Except the ants.

They appeared one sauna-like Saturday night during the recent heat wave--just two days before her return.

“Damn, you can’t choke now,” I whispered. “You’re too close.”

But this, believe me, was no small invasion. There were billions of the six-legged suckers--a veritable grid-locked freeway of creepy, crawling, marauding ants coming out of the wall, across the kitchen sink, along the tiled counter and down to the increasingly grimy floor.

Right to the overflowing garbage bag.

And the snaking line of conga-kicking ants didn’t stop there. It continued on to the cats’ bowls. And to the pantry.

There were ants everywhere. Ants laughing and calling to other ants. Ants telling jokes, with me their punch lines. Ants making long-distance telephone calls.

I guess I should have known something was wrong when I saw all four cats perched on the dining room table, refusing to go near their insect-infested bowls and giving me that silent scoff: “Now, look what you’ve done, dork.”

So, I panicked.

I got out the vacuum cleaner and began sucking up ants. But the critters just kept pouring out of the woodwork. I was afraid to go to bed for fear they might sense a retreat and attack me there. So I got out the aerosol ant-killer spray and emptied it all. Within minutes, they crawled defiantly about the empty can.

That really bugged me.

I bought more spray and set ant traps, that nifty cousin to the roach motel. Finally, about 4 a.m., the ocean of ants receded.

Two days later, I held my breath and drove to the airport to pick up my wife.

The ants regrouped. They even hung banners to welcome Betty home. But The Boop wasn’t mad. Ants, she said, with a reassuring pat on my head, could happen to anyone.

Maybe she was won over by the long-stem roses I brought to the airport. Or my long-uttered promise to take that car-care course at the local community college.

Still, I survived my relapse into bachelorhood. And now I’m already preparing for Betty’s next trip.

Like stocking up on new recipes.

And ant-killer.