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REMEMBER THE ALAMO-or-talk about what matters much more to new Texans - the discovery that, in Texas:

"You're just renting from the ants."

                      --Darren Evans, local storyteller

You may remember that one of my biggest shocks when moving from Seattle to Houston was moving from a place so cold and dreary that no bugs called it home--seriously, there weren't any mosquitoes in Seattle-to Insectopia.

• S kicked an ant pile during our first visit to an Open House thinking it was a pile of dirt.  She still claims that a dark spot on her toe is from one of the ant bites of that day.  (I still can't believe that the hosting realtor asked me if he should write up a contract.  I think he was kidding.  He was kidding right?)

•  A plopped down on the curb at the park not long after, accidentally settling herself down on a huge nest.  I thought that the other mom at the park would think that I was insane as she watched me tear off A's clothes and frantically slap her little thighs.  No.  Not a Texas mom.  She calmly handed me her water bottle to splash over A's little body with a smile and nod of sympathy.

I learned eventually.  I learned to scan the ground as I chatted at the playground looking for signs of underground life before spreading out my blanket.  I learned to bring a blanket everywhere since grass that looked green and soft might be hiding something nasty.  I learned that mint toothpaste neatly takes the sting out of of an ant bite, and I learned that cowboy boots are not just for fashion.

Nothing, though, could have prepared me for what I would face when we moved into our house after renting for six months.  The house had only been vacant for two weeks, and, with due diligence, I had hired an exterminator to spray the property before we moved in.  What I didn't know is that an ant infestation--there is no other word--had been building for some time.  Fortunately, our new dream home wasn't hosting a colony of fire ants.  No, if fire ants are your cousin Vinny, big and tattooed, showing off at the family reunion, our ants--ghost ants--were your cousin Myron.  Small and pale, Myron didn't bite.  In fact, Myron was hardly noticeable at all, until he joined up with your cousins Vera, Myrtle and Claire, and their cousins, Ethel, Simon, Dennis, and so on.  You would never notice Myron on his own, but, as part of the big cluster of otherwise unremarkable cousins, he was a force to be reckoned with. 

On move-in day, after all the boxes were in the house, I looked over at A's doll that she had plopped on a window sill as she toddled off to explore her room and saw that it was covered in ants.  Horrified, I ran the doll under water, thinking that she had dropped it outside.  Later, in the office, I saw a thick ant trail leading into a box that I knew held our computer cables and keyboards and, I suppose, lots of juicy crumbs.  Our pre-move in treatment had flushed the ants from their hiding spaces, and now they were everywhere.

For the next month, every cheerio left in the sink would be surrounded within minutes.  I could never see them on the black marble counter tops, but when I swept the counters with a wet paper towel, it would be littered with tiny black specks.  When I came home from work, my first thought was always "Where will the ants be today?" We chased them from room to room, but they kept moving - up the walls, down the floors, an inescapable enemy plucked from a 1970's budget horror movie.

In my 20's, I'd been a intermittent fan of King Of The Hill, laughing at the antics of Hank, Peggy and the rest of the crew.  Now in Texas, I understood so much more.  Yes, BBQ is a big deal.  Drinking beer on the sidewalk - why not?!  Dale and his Dead-Bug truck - yes - we need Dale.

Friends from Seattle came to visit soon after we moved in.  The doorbell rang one day.  I answered.  Who was it, they asked.  "Oh, just Matt." It was Matt. Matt, the pest control guy.  I've been living here for five years, and I still don't know the name of the lady who drives the postal truck.  But, Matt . . . Matt and I talk often.  Thanks to Matt, I haven't walked into a house of horrors in years.