Two New Articles

My mom reminded me that I should post these articles, my latest journalistic endeavors. Soon, I'll have a third and fourth to add.

The first is a link to my article Metro Spirit's website about an Augusta department that is being turned into condos and retail space:

http://metrospirit.com/index.php?cat=1993101074454885&ShowArticle_ID=11011809070574037

Next, is the text of a silly essay I wrote for the back page of the Spirit's special home section ("Abode"):



Camping Out with the In-Laws

Molly Brannan

The soldiers made up for their tiny size with tenacity, numbers, and the Creepy Effect. Too early one morning, as I opened the cabinet under the sink, it took me a few beats to realize what was wrong. The garbage can was in its spot. The trash was still inside it, including a cereal bag and its few, remaining crumbs.

But there was something black covering everything, something that moved like a huge, bumpy amoeba. Ants. Their scouts had found my high-fiber, low-fat, all-natural, too-expensive breakfast leftovers and had moved in, undetected, overnight. The adventures (or disasters) had just begun in what I like to call: Camping Out with the In-laws.

My fiancé and I are staying in the loft above his parents’ garage until we find a house of our own. Theirs is a beautiful property – both the big house and the little house – so “camping out” does not imply that our accommodations are shabby or that our hosts are anything but generous.

We have three black cats (my almost-in-laws are not cat people) and one black lab (they are not big dog people either), so we are forced to clean often. Even so, there seem to be a coincidentally high number of insect incidents that remind us, a la the house in the Shining, that we are not meant to be here forever. We may be mastering the steps in the dance-of-the-long-term-guests, but we are not permanent residents.

After the first ant encounter, we thought we had out-smarted them. I had wedged the cereal on a little ledge six feet off of the ground. We scrubbed, vacuumed, and swept, choosing not to use pesticides so close to our animals. We scrubbed, vacuumed, and swept again. We were sure that our kitchen was the least tasty on the block, and just in case the ants didn’t know, I told them in a flurry of curses.

We were wrong. The ants proved their love for golden oats and flax seed by a return visit, via the counter, the wall, and the cabinets. In one four-foot long stream of hungry troops, they raided my stash. I found them covering the box of cereal and the bag inside the box. I – the long-time vegetarian – took to killing them with my bare hands.

The ants also found an entrance through the crawl space on the second floor. They marched, single file into our bedroom through the space between the door and the wall. They went into our hamper where they roved – creepy! – in and out of our dirty clothes. Perhaps the last few dairy-free, vitamin-fortified crumbs called to them with the promise of a final well-balanced breakfast.

Although we have always seen our stay with my fiancé’s parents as being temporary, the search for a house of our own seem much more urgent. We have been told many times by the owners of the house that we are welcome to live here for as long as we like, and the uninvited guests agree. They only ask that we keep buying their favorite cereal.