ANTS!

When I was a kid, every so often on t.v. (channel 38) they had feature movie weeks. More specifically, they had one called: "Mother Nature Strikes Back Week" which I absolutely loved. They'd show movies about insects and animals killing people. One of my favorite movies that I remember, most fondly, was the one they showed called "ANTS." "ANTS" was exactly what you think it is... A Horror Movie about a colony of killer ants.



"Mother Nature Strikes Back Week" was something else and it was perfect because I could watch it and then be in bed by around 10 p.m. Worrying about killer insects. (If you ever get the chance "Piranha II: The Spawn" is also a definite must see.) The plot of "ANTS" is roughly as follows: there's an old hotel that's under construction, or something, and these poisonous ants come out of nowhere. People keep getting bitten, hurt, and killed by them. The climax comes when a group of people are chased, floor by floor, up to the top of the Hotel. Until the whole hotel is covered in ants. It's really a difficult one to watch...

Now, here I am... living in Los Angeles. Moved nine months ago with my brother. We're in a tiny apartment. Not quite big enough for the both of us, let alone James Patterson. (Our friend, not the author.) Add into the mix: it's the height of summer. The heat. No respite. You see where I'm going with this? There have been moments, since we've moved in, where we've had minor skirmishes with the ants. There was one time when James left a bottle of honey next to the fridge and we got hundreds of them all over our counter. We almost lost that one... but this... this is War. They're everywhere.

Don't get the wrong Idea. I don't mind ants. I think they're cute. And lately I've had a little bit of a philosophical conundrum because I don't think coexistence is possible but "If I kill an ant aren't I still taking a life?" I believe so. Why not value them as highly as people? Or all living things for that matter? Maybe that's a little much but I've taken my fair share of wildlives in my time anyway. Birds, squirrels, frogs, insects... (As a boy I was a bit of a soul-collector.) I'm not entirely happy about it but there was no other way to find out that serial killing wasn't for me. People make mistakes.

Maybe the ants are a mini-plague for my sins. Perhaps grasshoppers are next. One thing I can tell you is that wherever I meet them, on whatever battle ground we collide: the bathroom sink, the wall near my computer, next to the fridge, my dresser, the kitchen sink... (sometimes I'll find an ant on my body waaay waaaay after I've left my house... so, I think they're hiding out in my shirts too) Their superior numbers overwhelm. The trick, I'm finding out, is to kill the scout and erase his scent trail so the others won't know where our delectable delights are. Also, I've imported trained spiders. Really, I've just moved the ones I think will kill the ants from one location of the house to another.

And I'm no fan of spiders. Most times I'd rather hang out with ants than spiders but in this case the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Even if he was previously my enemy. Ya follow?

Part of me knows that whatever the reason these ants have attacked, I'm going to wake up some night in the middle of being carried off from my bed and an attempt will be made to stuff me through a tiny crack in my kitchen wall. I guess this is just my goodbye letter. Hopefully, when I reach their subterranean world, I'll convince them that they can use someone like me and that my talents are an asset to the colony. In which case I open a comedy club and start booking a show.
Goodbye,
Chris

-All inquiries for stage-time should be sent through chrispywalsh@gmail.com.
P.S. There was a movie called "Deadly Eyes" which will forever haunt my memories, as well.

More Kid Stories

Alright Gang, it's been a while since I've last written so it's going to take me a bit to get back up to speed... I thought I'd take another little trip down memory lane just to loosen up the old fingers.

Let's see, this one took place back when I was about nine, ten, or eleven. I'm not sure which but I do know I was at an odd age or at least in between. The year isn't extremely important to this story. All you need to know is that I was a kid and I loved taking showers. Still do. Whatever age I was at was probably just after the "I hate showering" phase. So, we got me at a lucky time because this story involves showering. The peculiar thing about my bathroom was that there was at least one oddity that resided in the medicine cabinet behind our mirror.

For about as long as I can remember, any time I opened up that cabinet my eyes always came to rest on an old green bottle that seemed to be completely dark and yet luminescent at the same time. As though it were some bottle of cure all full of phytoplankton. It had been there ever since we moved into the house and I'm pretty sure even before that. (Which is weird because my dad built the place.) Every time I was in the bathroom alone I'd open up the cabinet and take a look. The bottle itself was no mystery. It was only full of cologne. Manufactured by the Polo T-shirt Company.



Somehow I couldn't help but be intrigued, nay overwhelmed, by it's weird shape and color. Oftentimes, I'd open it up to take a whiff (It should be noted that I had no real concept of what cologne was for or how it was used) and imagine who would wear it and in what kind of world they lived. Paying no mind to the fact that it was actually in my world, in our medicine cabinet and I think belonged to my dad.

At some point I overheard some kids talking about cologne and it's powers. Perhaps one of my friends was explaining how it can act as an aphrodisiac. How it's "supposed to turn girls on..." Whatever. It was good enough for me. I was in. At the very next opportunity i took it out of the cabinet and took a whiff. This time all of my thoughts were on the ladies and how once I put a little Polo Cologne on my body they'd be waiting outside of 51 Sullivan Street for a chance at the young Chris Walsh...

So, I took that bottle of Cologne and put it on the sink, got undressed, and jumped into a hot shower. Periodically, opening the shower curtain just to make sure nobody'd run off with my life altering elixir. Once I was done with my shower I got out and toweled off. I took a quick look at the bottle, thinking for a second, maybe more like half a second. "If they come running if you use a little bit... what'll they do if you use more?" I said to myself. That's when I poured half the bottle of Polo Cologne all over my body. Starting with my neck I worked slowly down to my crotch, making sure not to miss my underarms and everywhere in-between. Now... I don't think the rash started right away but what it lacked in timing it more than made up for in fury. This rash was vicious.

Imagine my conundrum. A hot shower, a bottle of cologne, and giant red bumps all over my hairless bird... How do you even begin to tell anyone what happened? (Besides in a blog twenty years later?) It also raises my favorite coincidence: the solo embarrassment struggle. Where something is so embarrassing and you don't want to tell anybody and yet you have to because you're in pain. It's one of life's great comedies. Inevitably I had to tell my mom. I thought I was going to die. She took me to the doctor and I got the day off of school.

The first thing the Doctor said was, "I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS.... IN ALL MY YEARS OF DOCTORING...." He then said it "looked" like Poison Oak but wasn't quite Poison Oak. And what kind of kid runs through poison oak naked?

All of that was before I told anyone it was the old bottle of Polo Cologne in our medicine cabinet. Once he had seen it I figured that the jig was up so I let the secret go. Then the Doctor told my mom, my mom told my family, and somehow it leaked to the outside world. My class found out that the reason I had gotten out of the last week of school was because I had rubbed some old Cologne all over my genitals... they were unhappy BUT the ladies still haven't left me alone.

-Chris