Ants Are Mean

I had to waste the afternoon of a perfectly lovely warm late fall afternoon sleeping! Don't get me wrong some days I long for a lazy nap while fresh ocean breezes cover me better than the softest sheets. But not today.
Today was a gift, a throw back to summer with just enough coolness in the air to harken the colder days of winter ahead. It is what I call a threshold day, one step behind finds the summer fun, one step forward lands you in the excitment of winter holidays.
Looking forward to spending the day outside, I wrestled my grandson from P.J.'s to clothes, to shower, back into clothes, back into clothes, and back into clothes. Yes, I believe the count is right, dressing him 4 times in less than 45 minutes. The first time he insisted on wearing dirty clothes, I gave in, anything to get him dressed and outside. I jumped in the shower, he undressed and jumped in the shower. Dressing number two involved me insisting on him wearing clean underwear. We struggled, he won. Naked again, he agreed to wear clean underwear if he could wear them backwards. I agreed, what do I care if he has a wedgie all day? Backward clean underwear with dirty clothes on top. I could agree to that, I just wanted to get outside. On our way outside a collision with a water glass led to the fourth and final wardrobe choice, clean shirt, dirty pants, backwards but clean underwear, no shoes. Perhaps I should have taken it as a sign that we should not venture outside.
Today's mission several games of red light, green light and collecting fall leaves. Our cherry tree floats the most vibrant leaves onto our lawn. Colors range from burnished browns to sunny yellows. There are pumpkin and green leaves and golden oranges. Almost every color you could think of except red. I have asked my grandson to bring me yellow leaves, then brown, then orange...he says what about red? Looking around we find no reds. He looks up and spies the flaming red trees lining the back of our neighbor's yard. Barefoot and armed with an array of leaves we head over to ask if we may harvest a few of the red leaves lying about in such plenty. Our neighbors love my grandson and eagerly offer for him to take bushels and bushels of leaves. We thank them and tell them a few will do.
My grandson is happily picking up leaves and I see that the most vibrant reds have fallen close to the trunk of the tree. I venture in and am stooped over mindlessly calling out, "look at this one, oh look at this one," when something else red appears to be under the tree. Ants!
My left bare foot is covered in fire ants, stinging and biting or whatever it is that they do. In just a few short moments they have swarmed my foot and the bottom of my pants. Trying to remain cool and keep my grandson away, I scream and spastically begin brushing them off my foot and pants. No one likes fire ants and as it turns out I am allergic to the little freaks of nature.
Two antihistimines, and two ibuprofens later, I'm on the couch with a foot that looks like a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I have hives covering my entire body and my fingers are almost too swollen to hold anything. My eyes are heavy from the antihistimine. My daughter has come to retrieve my grandson and I drifted off not to awaken for two hours! The door bell was ringing or perhaps I would be sleeping still. God does indeed work in mysterious ways. It was the "bug man" at the door. I had forgetten about our quarterly pest control visit. I explained my plight, to which he responded, "Ants are mean." Yep, ants are mean!