No dawdling

I crawled into bed, reached back to turn off the lights, and there were the ants. Black and fast, they covered the top of the dresser, the back of which serves as headboard. They rushed about horizontally, vertically (no difference to them) in every direction.  They weren't on the bed (more than one or two) but how could I sleep with masses of manic machines moving about just inches from my pillow.

The reason for their sudden interest in my bedroom was clear: an open and unfinished can of ginger ale was on the dresser. The random walks of the ants sort of averaged out to a line from a place under the baseboard, across a bit of floor, up the piece of furniture, across the top, to the mother lode, sweet gold. Perhaps all the rest of the activity was a concomitant strategy to locate other similar troves nearby. Normally silent, the ants made small noises inside the can, scratchings as of climbing and falling, climbing and falling.

How the ants proposed to exploit this treasure I don't know. I've seen them carry food in their jaws but what could they do with liquid?  Drink it and regurgitate it in the nest?  Drink it and enjoy individually?  That doesn't seem the ant-like way.

How did they find this single potent carelessness, the open soda can? My house, especially that north side, must be regularly reconnoitered by ants. I find the odd ant here or there in my kitchen, and kill it. The bedroom is above the kitchen, so I imagine a solitary scout went up the inside wall,  entered the bedroom, began randomly visiting all the places in the room, found the soda, returned to the nest leaving a trail and invited his friends and his friend's friends too to come and partake.

I took the can of soda to the sink, slunged it of ants, and threw it away. Thereafter, the activity of the black, glossy all-terrain vehicles diminished, and I went to sleep.

The next day, I located where, I think, they'd been entering the house and sprayed insecticide. There seem to be few ants now than before, but I'll have to keep watch longer to make sure. I'm full of doubts. These ants are not monsters; they have their own strategy for survival in the world. They are, however, good at hiding, incessant in activity and numerous.  When my structures and their drives collide, it isn't good.

There's a wood lot next door. Stay there; live, love and prosper in that place. I won't disturb you, promise. Turn about is fair play, however.  Don't come into my house, much less my bedroom.

A message falling on deaf ears (if ants even have ears). Can I address these creatures as 'you' in any meaningful sense? Perhaps an attributed 'you' based on respect, attention, and (is it possible, E. O. Wilson?) love.

Just don't mess with my house.