Blessings on the food25 Feb 2008 10:49 am
By Heather O.
I’ve mentioned this before. I hate ants. With a passion. Growing up in Southern California, our home was plagued with them, and it drove me crazy. There is nothing worse than pouring yourself a bowl of cereal, adding milk, and watching ant corpses bob to the surface. It was enough to make an 8 year old who loves her Fruit Loops weep.
Oh!!!
I also hate ants! I’m better about not being AFRAID of them now that I am older.
BUT…
When I was a bout 4 or 5, we lived in a basement apartment, and there were TONS of ants! Ants on the tiolet paper in the bathroom…ants in the kithcen cupboards…ants in the sinks…ants everywhere!
It was because a neighbor never cleaned, and even AFTER he moved out, the whole apartment was still infested with them. The landlord either didn’t care enough to hire an exterminator, or he did, and it just didn’t take.
One day, my mom surprised me with new ballet shoes (you know the pink kind with the little elastic strap across the top). I put them ever so lovingly right next to my bed at night so I could wear them as soon as I woke up. Well, as soon as I woke up, I saw that the ballet shoes were no longer there. Or so I thought. I turns out they were there…I just couldn’t tell at first becuase they were COVERED with black ants. And I mean COVERED. A swarm, or whatever it’s called when ants do that disgusting thing they do…you know what I’m talking about. I was really very traumatic… and ewwwwwww gross yucky.
Anyway, that should explain why I was terrified of ants for decades. It was my husband who fianlly helped me brake through my fear of them. But that’s another story entirely…
Comment #1 by mellocelloFebruary 25th, 2008 at 11:50 amAnd regarding the story at seggulah…
(ahem, sorry about my blog faux-paus)
My grandmother undercooks her chicken. WAYYYY undercooks it. And they are the lutheran type of family that always says the same prayer over the food “come Lord Jesus, be our guest…”
Comment #2 by mellocelloFebruary 25th, 2008 at 11:55 amAnyway, I always say a little prayer in my head that the food will be blessed and not make me get ill. Once, everyone at a family dinner got sick with stomach flu-type symptoms a day after eating there, except for me and my DH. I guess he must have said the same type of prayer in his head too. You can’t tell grandma that her chicken is undercooked, and could she please put it back on the burner for antoher ten or (fifteen) minutes. You just can’t do that to sweet little grandma.
In response to the post at Segullah…
Comment #3 by fluffychickyFebruary 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pmI don’t have any experience like that, but my husband will tell you that it was only due to prayer that he survived being fed raw bacon while on his mission in Finland. Yuckola!!
I too experience the wonders of food crawling with ants in Ecuador. I learned to push the ants to one side of the plate so I could eat the ant free food on the other side. Good times.
Comment #4 by AnnieFebruary 26th, 2008 at 5:38 amI just don’t know that my OCD tendancies would ever have let me serve a mission over seas. I could eat rice and beans or top ramen every day, but I really don’t think I could handle raw mean or inadequately prepared food that was likely to give me salmonella. I get squicked out enough by weird food in the US like chitlins and pigs feet that some of my relatives eat. My hubby will eat pork rinds with HAIR on them. As for ants, I’m definitely not a fan, but I guess I’d rather have ants than cockroaches or mice. Eeew.
Comment #5 by snow whiteFebruary 26th, 2008 at 10:46 am