pk13 Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Tale of insanity/looking for an answer here.... So I go get the mail this afternoon and find a couple of packages from eBay auctions I've won. Who doesn't like eBay packages in the mail? I'm walking back into the house, smile on my face, packages under my arm, and life is good. I get inside and turn on the tv and put both of the packages on the coffee table and fix a sandwich. I'm eating my sandwich and opening up boxes and the first one is good. What's in the box is exactly what I bought. Mental note to leave that seller positive feedback. I pick up the second box and notice that the seller did a good job of taping up the edges, (I notice that sort of thing, and it's important), and proceed to slice through the top layer of tape and address label to get at the Minimates. I open it, take a bite of sandwich, and feel something on my arm. I instinctively slap at my elbow and see that there's an ant crawling towards my hand from my elbow. I send slap number two at it and kill it. Then take a drink and think about how odd it is to see an ant in my home and just how much I dislike them. That thought hasn't left my ant-hating brain for two seconds before I feel another one on my arm. So sandwich time is officially over at this point and I look into the box that I had opened but not yet inspected. What I find is a horror show. It was like Hitchcock's Birds, except with ants. Probably more ants than birds, but I don't know. And I'm not talking about tiny little ant farm ants. Because that would be too easy. These things are abominations of nature. Giant freaking bastards, I think I couple had wings, one of em might have had a knife. Again, I'm not 100% sure. It's at this point that I make the decision to move this fiasco out to the front porch before trying to do anything else. I grab the box by a top flap and make for the front door. I swing it open and try to do the same with the storm door until I realize that I had locked it on my way in. I like to think I take steps to keep the house safe and one of those steps is locking the storm door. It seems like a responsible thing to do until you're frantically Juggernaut rushing through the doors of your house in an attempt to fling a box that once held so much hope but now only holds so many ants, (that are hemorrhaging out at an alarming rate). I get that door unlocked and throw the 6x6 Cenobite ant puzzle cube onto the porch and watch them just absolutely go insane in some kind of sick twisted stage show out of the box and all the f over everything. It's at this point that I abandoned any and all hope of saving the figures because the Minimate to ant ratio was so bad that it seemed pointless. I go back into the house and grab some insect spray and get back out on the front porch and get to work. You would like to think that when you buy insect killing spray that, in your time of need, it would actually kill stuff. Maybe I'm an unreasonable consumer, but that's just how I think about the things I buy. I expect them to work. This is one of the times that reality did not meet expectations. After a good 15 second carpet bombing, the ants actually seemed happy. Instead of twisting up in their death throes, they were leisurely hopping through the lake of poison that I just dropped on them. I thought that the poison cloud would lift and I would see dead ants everywhere. Instead they were on their backs making poison angels in what must have tasted like delicious gravy to them. I was a little scared at this point. These things had survived in a sealed box for several days of over the weekend shipping without food or water and then had been neck deep in Raid's finest nerve toxin and were just as happy as they could be. Not cool. The only option left was to go hand to hand. I started just stomping the hell out of all of it. Crushing the box, splashing up the puddles of doesn't-kill-ant-sauce, and looking like a psycho to anyone driving or walking by. The action was something resembling a short hop to bring the foot down hard and then a twist to make sure they were ground into the concrete. I feel like I got most of them because there was a lack of movement. But for all I know, these things have cloaking tech and are planning a comeback. So that's the tale. It was amateur hour exterminator mixed with playing splish splash in a lake of insect poison. And I look like I've been in a slap fight due to the finger shaped bruises I suffered while wildly slapping myself during the assault from the ant vanguard. Now, I have some questions. First off, that box was sealed. I always look at that sort of thing. Which leads me to think that the ants were in the box before it left its destination. Do I leave bad feedback for this? I mean, I try to be as understanding as possible when it comes to trades and purchases, but having to play amateur f'ing Orkin Man for a half hour doesn't exactly leave me with warm fuzzy positive feedback feelings in the pit of my ant-hating stomach. On the other hand, since I'm pretty sure that these were genetically altered super ants, is it foolish to anger the maker of these monsters with neutral or negative? And does anyone have any idea of how bad insect killer spray will affect the figures? I ended up gloving up and retrieving them and washing them off before bagging up the Raid soaked box and packaging taping the hell out of the bag before throwing it away. They weren't expensive so that's not an issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lobsterman Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 pk, I've had a really shitty couple of days, and, although I regret your unfortunate luck, the picture you paint brought a much-needed smile to my face. On a related note, have you ever watched the movie The Naked Jungle? Marabunta!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zexion_Armando Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 (edited) I would burn the box in a blaze of purity! Figures be damned! What figures were they?And I would send a message personally to the seller. Negative feedback all around lol. Also, it might be illegal or something to try and introduce something like that into someone else ecosystem. I dont know the laws on sending living things and bugs through the mail with malicious intent. Edited September 22, 2014 by Zexion_Armando Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trekker 42 Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Y... yeah... yeah leave negative feedback. Hell, report him for sending something like that. I can't imagine THAT many ants in a sealed box was an accident. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lokash Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Who was the seller? That way I avoid an accidental purchase of minimates plus genetically altered ants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youbastards Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellpop Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 This reminds me of a story in Gerard Jones' excellent book Men of Tomorrow. Seems an indie comics publisher was going through some mail when he noticed that he'd received a spec script from Jerry Siegel. Yes, that Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman. This was back in the days before DC had begun to make reparations for Siegel and Shuster, seeing as how the were, y'know, the foundation of the entire damn company. Anyway this publisher couldn't believe it. An unsolicited script! From the co-creator of Superman! So he sat back to read it... except that it was covered in fleas. Covered. He had no choice but to burn it. And he never heard from Siegel again. Sorry to hear about that, PK. I'd probably at least send the seller a message before leaving neg feedback. And sorry you've been having a bad couple days, Lobby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigvis497 Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Wow, my skin was crawling just reading this. I would probably leave negative feedback or at least let the seller know. It's not like they were shipping food, there's no reason for ants to be in there. Now I'm gonna be checking every package I get..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cylonchaney Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 (edited) Can you imagine trying to corral a bunch of ants into a minimates package? Maybe they were in storage in a basement or something and he was not aware of the infestation. Also reminds me of this: edit:(from xkcd.com - love that comic) Edited September 23, 2014 by cylonchaney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterPL Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 I wouldn't leave negative feedback with the seller unless the product was damaged but I'd definitely leave him a message. I would definitely leave negative feedback with whomever manufactured that shitty-ass bug spray. That's messed up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Wiseau Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Yeesh, ahaha! What figures were they and how much did you snag them for? May have been a case of sour grapes! Or, I think we can introduce "shipped ants" as a legitimate saying now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blacksun1520 Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Definitely contact the seller, there is no way those Monster Island ants could have escaped his view while packing the mates inside. Maybe it was some sort of twisted joke, or maybe he thinks you really like ants. IDK, but that is messed up. I would negative feedback the crap out of him as well. Raid impervious monster ants are not to be taken lightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffBohn Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 That is terrifying! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambitron Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Nightmares! There should be something beyond negative feedback for so ething like that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pk13 Posted September 23, 2014 Author Share Posted September 23, 2014 Sorry to hear you've had a bad run lately, Lobby. I hope things turn around quickly for you! It was just a couple of MvC figures that I wanted for alternate looks. $15 for 4 so I'm not too put out by it. I washed them all of really well and let them soak in in warm soapy water for a bit. Not that drowning will do anything to super ants, but it's nice to fool myself into a false sense of security. And I think that I'm going to just let sleeping ants lie as far as giving the seller any grief. It was either a horrible accident or it was intentional. I'm not going to mess with someone that's crazy enough to put upwards of 150 ants into Minimates packages. But I'm not leaving positive either. Just hoping that it was a weird thing that becomes more funny in time instead of what I fear might be a directed mutant ant assault. That cartoon is absolutely cracking me up.yb, I honestly didn't even think to take out my phone and take pics in the middle of it. It wasn't until I had de-anted that the whole thing shifted slightly from horror to comedy. But I did take some of the aftermath on the porch. Mind you, this is a few hours later and after several go overs with a broom. There are *still* pieces of ant on the poison stained steps. I think the Raid kind of clear coated some of the remnants onto the porch. I would take pics of the tape-mummified bag that all of the box and paper towels went into before being thrown away but adding dumpster diving to the list of indignities that I've suffered this day is too much. I just know that the ones that got away are out there multiplying and plotting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous Rex Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Now that is some weird toy karma..... by tomorrow the karma will shift in the other direction I agree with MRPL on this, I don' think i'd leave any feedback either, but would definitely bring it to their attention. But hey, I'm a guy who has probably only used his car horn a dozen times in the 25 or so years I've been driving, so it would take a lot for me to leave a negative feedback anyway. As long as noone was hurt, and your house doesnt become infested, I'd chalk it up to a pretty funny story you can tell at get togethers! like the one time my buddy ordered a cheesesteak and fries, and when he opened the package he saw all the meat had been eaten out of the sandwhich, and the deleivery driver stuck the fries into the roll so noone would notice! it was pretty funny, and we still talk about it, and i doubt we would have been talking about how good that cheesesteak was twenty years later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NerdyTrev Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 I was reading this, really hoping you had bought an Ant-Man minimate, and it was in that package! But yeah, that's terrible. I would do more than leave negative feedback, I would straight up call the guy and get to the bottom of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karamazov80 Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Sounds like a sign from God. Next package you get will be filled with locusts, or possibly piranhas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arnim zola Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 That story was priceless. Reading it at work, the look on my face must have been great. My jaw was hanging on every word and you have definitely made my day brighter. 2 years ago I fell asleep playing video games and my can of coke was on the windowsill next to me, I woke up a pit later and rank some of it. Then I noticed an ant on my hand. I instinctively smashed it hulk style before it bit me. Then I found another. After a yelling round of WTF I look to the window and there are ants crawling all around my soda can, and on it. And, after further examination, in it. I DRANK ANTS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karamazov80 Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Once when I was in high school I took out the trash. As I was pulling the garbage can to the road, I noticed a sting on my leg. I looked down and there were probably 50 ants all over me, and they seemed to all bite me in unison. I knocked as many off as I could while I ran to the water hose to spray myself down. Ever sense then, I get a strange shiver when I see a bunch of ants together, and become irrationally fearful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anilsoi11 Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 In Thailand, we would consider that a bonus. The seller had included snacks for you to enjoy along with your figures! joke of course, I'd not leave a negative feedback but definitely will contact the seller about it to prevent it happening again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanester Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Ants are a nasty business down here by K80 and me. Fire ants will have you hurting for days and you usually don't see them until they are all biting you in unison. This sounds like maybe they were in the box and the seller didn't realize it. Some ants will actually eat pulpy material like cardboard, so they may have been in there and got sealed in. That or the seller played a prank... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zexion_Armando Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 The way he described it being taped would make it seem way more intentional. Did anyone else leave feedback similar to what you described for the seller? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurch77 Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 You're so getting some new bug spray sent to you for the holidays this year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TENIME_art Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Sh***y, sh***y, terrible, awful thing to happen to you, but this: one of em might have had a knife....made my day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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