The vending machine

 

I dreamed I was at work again, making myself useless. I didn't have a job or a purpose for being there. I was just wandering around talking to my ex-coworkers. I saw Luis Ramirez at the vending machine, and I stopped to talk with him for a minute. He didn't have much to say to me and left without taking his change. I stuck my finger in the change receptacle, and a quarter fell out on the ground with a very audible tinkle. Luis swung around and looked at me.

"Go ahead," he said. "I guess you need it more than I do."

I did go ahead, picking up the one coin and digging further into the receptacle. I kept pulling quarters out until I had about a dollar fifty total. Score. I usually don't have this kind of luck with vending machines, or cash in general. 

After collecting my fortune, I walked past the front desk. Art, the owner, was sitting in front of a computer terminal, intently poring over some data. I greeted him cordially, and he looked up at me.

"Hey, Andrew," he said. "I'm looking at some new hires. Do you want to see their pictures?"

"Sure," I said.

"I don't know if I can pull them up on this machine, but I'll try," he said.

----

That's all I remember. Pretty basic, I know. My brain has been occupied of late with the defense of my home. I am at war with the ants on my property. 

Since a tree went down in my backyard, millions of ants who had been nesting inside the dying trunk have now been displaced and are seeking new accommodations inside my house. There are long lines of refugees crawling around the foundation, and some have made incursions as far as the kitchen. 

Spraying them with bug killer only seems to stem the immediate invasion, a single battle won in a war that is gearing up to be an infinitely long conflict. We have opposing agendas, the ants and I. They want in, and I want them out.  

Today, after spotting another two lines of attack, I brought out the next phase of my chemical warfare, the bait granules. The product alleges to be able to kill the entire colony, since the ants will carry their food back to the nest, eventually reaching the queen. No queen, no colony. We'll see, as the Zen master said.

I did watch some of them pick up these rather large poison laden particles and head in the direction of my house. This new strategy is testing my patience, though. My instinct is to kill them on sight to prevent them from entering the house. I have to have faith that wherever they are going, I should let them go, since the poison won't get to the queen if I kill the workers. 

That's my life right now. Big struggle, I know. I'm literally making a mountain out of an anthill. Oh, and I may need a small bowel resection, but I don't want to go on about it.