The best laid plans....

A downed power pole in Milwaukee has closed down the interstate for several hours, the news interrupting Dr. Phil and his intervention of four boys who tattooed slurs on another boy's ass.

In 90-degree heat cars and trucks are piled pell-mell on I-94 downtown, near College Avenue. Truckers are trapped and bloating like beached whales as we speak.

I've vowed to not leave the house for three days this long holiday weekend to heal a bum knee, living in a tricot nylon nightgown, the only kind of sleepwear my mother would wear because "it moves with the body."

The kitchen table is piled high with cast-aside paperwork and there's no excuse to look away: review the car insurance, think about writing a will, find a new doctor, tackle the pile of bills.

I drop a pen and bend down to pick it up - then muffle a scream/gasp/partial upchuck.

The carpet is moving, and it isn't from LSD.

Gazillions of miniscule ants are marching, horror-movie stye, in a line from the cat food bowl to the patio door. Worker teams carry tiny bits of cat food, left on the floor by Dreamer, who stuffs food in her mouth like a chipmunk, then chucks it out onto the carpet like kids blowing spitballs.

This is all her fault.

I panic, spraying Windex all over the carpet. The interstate of ants scatter. I run for the vacuum, dragging my bum knee. They smell my fear.

I suck up, by accident, the fur covered toy weasel. It's stuck in the vacuum hose. I pull it out - piece by piece - with a pair of pliers.

By now I'm whimpering a little from the creepy-crawly feeling traveling up my spine to the base of my neck. Oprah has come on - it's the story of the girl who was locked in a dog cage, revisiting, as a grown woman, the dark basement she was kept in.

Cayenne pepper - I'm spilling it around the base of the patio door. I spy a tiny hole - a portal of hell - and douse it with some old rose spray I found under the kitchen sink. OMG - why is there no poison in this house, where is the chemical warfare when you need it?

The cats have been watching this ant debauchle for who knows how long. I've wondered about their distain, they are usually much better at hiding it, but lately it's been so blatent.

The hole in the wood is now temporarily filled with putty - it's smeared on the carpet and up the woodwork - a whitish-reddish peppery concoction, covered in several layers of duct tape.

I'm poised to rip up the carpeting. This could take me well into late-night reruns of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

And Dreamer's cheeks are suspiciously puffed out...