I woke up this morning. I used the toilet. I flushed it. There was the satisfying sound of a toilet, well, flushing.

Then there was the very unsatisfying sound of the toilet not refilling its tank. I tried a faucet — sure enough no water. Obviously, the ants were at it again. (Read this story from yesterday for how they disrupted our water supply once before.)

So, now I have to rush out there and fix the well before I can get to work. This time, I’m going to be prepared. I found a can of insecticide, a metal file, and head out there. Sure enough, more ants had been killed in the pressure switch. I cut the power to the switch, cleaned off the metal contacts, and sprayed insecticide everywhere I could. I restored power, and there was a satisfying faint hummmm as the water pump whirred to life.

So then all I had to do was cut power again for a moment as I did a final cleaning and reassembly of the switch and headed back inside.

All was fine until this evening. I noticed somewhat low water pressure. I tried to be optimistic — “the pump’s probably kicking on right now.” But no. Once again as I flushed a toilet, the toilet tank didn’t refill.

By now I am MAD. These ants are going down. I was a few minutes late to work because of them, and now I’m going to have to go out to the well in the dark to fix them. So I again grab my tools, and this time I find the stickiest thing I can — some tape. I figure I’ll wrap it around the post the pressure switch is on, sticky side out, and trap them on their way up.

So I turn on the flashlight and head out to the well house. I open it up. And hmm — different problem this time.

The power is off entirely. The little twerps have somehow applied 20 pounds of force to the power lever and cut it out!

I’m sure there is no way that I would have forgotten to turn the power back on this morning, in my thirsty trying-not-to-be-late-for-work semi-tired daze…

All I can say is: it amazing how much water you can store up when you have two pressure tanks. Terah even ran the dishwasher today.

Terah called me in from outside to inform me that the washing machine was just sitting there. No action. Just stalled in the middle of the cycle. I poked around a bit, and sure enough. It’s stuck.

I then turned on the water faucet next to the washing machine. Nothing came out. So naturally I thought: the terrorists have attacked our water supply! Run for the hills! (which in Kansas are a 3-hour drive)

(Actually, what I thought was we want to put this house on the market next week, and the last thing we need now is a lack of running water. But I’m sure if I watched the cable news channels, I’d think of terrorists first.)

Now before I can explain how SUICIDE ANTS were the cause of our water problems, we need to take a small diversion into the fascinating realm of rural plumbing. When you have a well supplying water to your house, there’s a pump connected to a pressure tank, which is then connected to the house’s plumbing. When you turn on a faucet, you drain water out of the tank. When the pressure reaches a certain minimum, a pressure switch turns on the pump. The pump pumps water into the tank until the pressure reaches a maximum, at which point the pressure switch turns the pump back off.

Now, inside the pressure switch are little metal plates. To turn on the pump, the plates snap together, completing the circuit. To turn off the pump, the plates snap apart.

So, back to our story.

I went out to the well house (the small outdoor structure that houses the tank and switch) with my usual well-adjusting tools: pliers, screwdriver, gloves. I open up the well house and cut the power. I take the cover off the pressure switch and stare at it for a minute.

Hmmm I think to myself. The system pressure is 0 PSI, so the pump should have been running… And indeed the pressure switch plates had snapped together….

…or had they?

No! There was — and I am not making this up — a cake of DEAD, PARTIALLY SINGED ANTS between the metal plates. In fact, there were ants crawling around all over the pressure switch. So I used my screwdriver to scrape the plates off as well as I could. I couldn’t get them perfectly clean because of the angle, but I figured it’d be enough to make contact.

I turned the power back on. Little blue sparks appeared at the pressure switch (burning up the last of the SUICIDE ANTS), and then half a second later, the pump sprang into action.

Now this raises some alarming questions:

Why didn’t our government do anything to stop the SUICIDE ANTS from attacking our water supply?

And more importantly, who is behind this sudden sinister interest in pressure switches on the part of our hill-building friends?

I can see the headlines now:

“Ants attack water supply in Kansas… Is New York far behind?”

“Gitmo Intelligence Links Suicide Ants to bin Laden”

“Price of Raid Hits $200 A Barrel Amid Fears of Ant Attacks”

“5 Troops Deployed With Cans of RAID to Terrorist Ant Training Camps in the Pakistani Mountains”

“Thirsty Latchkey Children Forced To Scrape Dangerous Terrorist Ants From High-Voltage Switches Before Using Faucet”

“Is Your Water Safe? Watch the story about the latest threat tonight at 11″

“Small-town Kansas man detained for posting instructions for attacking rural water systems using ants”