Curse You, Eticulitermes Flavipes!

Setting the Stage
We’ve got termites.
Actually, let me rephrase that. That’s the rational statement of fact. My own personal, irrational, hyperbolic statement is that we are beset by a plague of nigh Biblical proportions.
This all began early last week as I walked in to my kitchen after a long day of work and HOLY MOTHER OF MARY AND ALL THAT IS SACRED AND PURE MY FLOOR IS BLACK AND MOVING! As my rational brain started functioning again, I noticed my wife, having arrived home just prior to my entrance, standing in a corner staring at the mess in horror.
“What are they?” she said. “I think they’re termites,” said I. A quick googling for termite pictures revealed that yes, the filthy buggers were indeed the winged forms of termites. I duly informed our landlords of the termite infestation and yesterday a professional exterminator confirmed that yes indeed, they’re termites. The exterminators are due out Monday to drill and fill with termite bait apparently. In the meantime, we’re going to have to deal.
I’m Your Worst Nightmare
Everyone has their phobias – my own personal one is spiders. I’m not quite sure why (perhaps it was the horror stories of ghastly, bloated corpses and permanent paralysis brought on by Brown Recluse and Black Widow spider bites told to me by my filthy lying no-good wonderfully caring uncle) but I’ve never been too bothered by insects in general. I can handle ants, I do okay around bees (I must confess to some mild amounts of discomfort when large numbers of bees are present) and anything without a stinger or pincers is fine by me. My recent experiences with swarms of termites has caused me to pause and reconsider my fears in a deep, personal and meaningful fashion.
Up until last night, the swarm had largely confined itself to a corner of the basement and areas near the radiators in our kitchen and dining room, occasionally venturing forth in groups numbering in what I would gauge to be in the low thousands. The worst that I had experienced was a vague horror when my wife pointed out that, no, in fact, my eyes were not playing tricks on me and that the black specks on our dining room carpet were, in fact, moving as they happened to be termites and not, strictly speaking, part of the carpet itself. Also, and I’m not quite sure how a large group of termites accomplish this feat, they appeared to be cavorting in a rather jovial fashion.
They really kicked their campaign into high gear last night, though. I came home to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Freakin’ Doom in my kitchen. The bugs were practically wall-to-wall, hopping and jumping around the result of which was a hideous low-level sound somewhere between a large bowl of Rice Crispies and thousands of CO₂ bubbles popping in unison in a giant vat of Coke. It was at that point that I developed a galloping case of the Royal Heebie Jeebies. I was skeeved. No, strike that. We left Skeeved back at the last rest stop ’cause he couldn’t handle it and Creeped is currently hanging out by the side of the road with a severe case of the dry heaves. The entire string section of the Boston Pops was plucking away in a minor key inside my head.
Blech. My skin is crawling just from thinking about it.
So, the long-and-short of it is that if you don’t hear from me again, I’ve probably been eaten by termites.
*shudder*