Winged victory

(N is for nervous and noxious)

The ants swarmed on the bedroom carpet, a churning black mass that spread toward the picture window. Those with wings flew a few feet, then dropped onto the comforter and pillows.
“Oh my god,” Ned’s wife shrieked. “Do something about them.” She batted the flying ants away from her face and fled the room, still in her pajamas.
Ned hated spring because it brought the annual influx of carpenter ants – and his wife’s insistence that he get rid of them. He guessed that the swarm had reached capacity in some hidden area of the house, having feasted on the joists that held up the floors, and now were heading for fresh forests to fell. Uneasily, he wondered if one morning, as he rolled out of bed, the entire upper story might collapse from the invisible damage the ants had wrought.
After breakfast that Saturday, Ned vacuumed up all the ants he could see, even sucking some out of midair. It was a satisfying feeling. Then he drove to the hardware store and bought a pump sprayer and a general-purpose insecticide. The hardware clerk tried to sell him dusting powder, arguing that it was safer, but Ned figured whatever spray he didn’t use on the ants, he could aim at the garden slugs and paper wasps that built nests under the eaves.
“Dad, can I watch?” Ned’s son, Anthony, tagged along behind Ned as he climbed the stairs to the bedroom, armed with the sprayer.
Ned set the sprayer down in the bedroom doorway. “Go play outside with your sister. This stuff is bad for you.”
“But I wanna see ‘em die,” the boy whined.
Ned was firm, and Anthony stomped down the steps. The day was cool, with a fresh breeze, so Ned opened the bedroom windows wide to vent any noxious vapors from the bug spray. Despite the draft, he was sweating slightly. He was nervous, but not sure why – these were ants, not tarantulas.
With the sprayer tank in his left hand and the nozzle in his right, he worked his way around the baseboard, evenly coating the wood. He wasn’t sure where the ants were coming from, but they had first appeared on the floor. After making a complete circuit of the room, he paused to decide what else to spray. The scent of the insecticide was mildly sweet. Two ants crawled out of an electrical outlet, made their way down the wall to the baseboard, frantically waved their antennae and fell to the floor.
“Gotcha,” Ned said, pleased with his work. “Let me just take care of any of your buddies hiding in there.” He knelt down to better aim the nozzle into the outlet. His wife found him later, when she went to find out why the breaker had blown. He was stretched out on the carpet, dead.