6 DEC 05: DON'T GO CHASING WATERFALLS

My last laundry day brought a big surprise. I loaded white items in a laundromat washer - and found a three-inch long lizard in the bottom of the tub! I don't recall Geico sending me any geckos, when I renewed my car insurance.

I tried to reach for the lizard, but it crawled under the pile of clothes in the washtub and hid. My goal was either to pluck it out of the washer, or crush it - and there's no better place to do that, with your pre-wash stain treatment right at hand.

Instead of becoming an urban version of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin by tracking down this lizard further, I decided to go ahead and start the machine. After all, you know what they say - it all comes out in the wash....

It was a rare moment of laundry day drama when the wash cycle ended. Would this crawling thing attack me when I opened the lid, to get revenge on what I'd done? Would we finally see an actual case of "leapin' lizards?"

But no, this "soap opera" didn't turn out that way. As I pulled out the white clothes to move them to the dryer, I found the lizard - dead, seemingly in one piece, and only about one-and-a-half inches long. Wow, washing in hot water really DOES make things shrink....

I'm not really sure if the lizard was in the laundromat all along, or entered my bedroom hamper before I made the trip. I've seen everything from roaches to spiders and tiny frogs in my apartment over the years -- so many that I'm tempted to start calling it Oxbow Meadows North.

This brings me to a progress report on my long-lasting bathtub problems. The faucet installed earlier this year is working flawlessly - but another problem has developed in the last week. A small invasion has started under at least one of my ceramic tiles. How I wish they were those "scrubbing bubbles...."

But no again -- dozens of ants somehow have found a way under a few of the tiles above my bathtub. They're coming out of hiding, through cracks between tiles. It's not like I'm having bubble baths there every weekend, nibbling on bonbons they can eat....

I went outside to find the source of the problem, but I was stumped. "No sign of forced entry, or a point of entry," mumbled this C.S.I. - Creature Stopping Investigator.

But I've discovered the ants wall can be their own worst enemy. They rush out in waves from under the tiles when I turn out the bathtub faucet - as if Niagara Falls has emerged within ten feet of them.

The rushing water brings the ants out, then my using the shower rinses them down into the tub. Most do NOT seem to survive - proving curiosity can kill much more than cats.

But a few ants have NOT taken kindly to my efforts to wash them away. I have the ant bites on my hands to prove it. In fact, over the weekend my hands were SO ITCHY that it was all I could do to avoid trying to crack a safe.

I called the landlord for help with this insect problem. "I have a problem with my bathtub," I told him. "It's leaking ants."

"It's leaking.... ants!?!" He seemed skeptical -- but thankfully not ant-agonistic.

"Ants are a problem for almost everybody," the landlord told me. I suppose so. I swept away a couple of big ant hills from near my back door a few weeks ago. That'll teach me to sweep the piles of dirt into the nearby grass - and not all the way across the driveway, to share the wealth with the neighbor.

The landlord is trying to arrange for a repair person to come to my apartment, since one of the bathtub tiles fell off the wall due to the ants. In the meantime, he advised: "Fantastik or 409 kills them on contact." Wait until the people at Black Flag and Raid read this blog....

As I write this, only a few ants linger in the bathtub. I think merely placing the bottle of Formula 409 at the edge of the tub scared them away. But perhaps they're huddling behind a tile as the weather gets cold again - waiting for the next "nature study" of their own, courtesy Columbus Water Works.

Now before I hit the shower and take my chances, let's check some news headlines from Monday:

+ Phenix City school superintendent Larry DiChiara offered a revised plan to reorganize schools. Among other things, South Girard School would be used by eighth-graders only. So people in south Phenix City opposed segregation - and now instead they may get busing.

(Is that BellSouth phone listing accurate - that Phenix City Superintendent DiChiara lives in Smiths Station? Is he following the example Muscogee County's John Phillips tried to set last year, with that proposed chief of staff and a big Russell County house?)

+ Meanwhile, a group of Phenix City students left for three days at the NASA Space Camp in Huntsville. Some of us are old enough to remember when you didn't have to leave town to "space out" - you simply daydreamed during class.

+ WRBL revisited East Columbus Magnet Academy, and found gang activity has stopped since that weekend brawl a month ago. I'm not sure if the secret is better enforcement, more parental involvement - or the fact that good Christmas presents are on the line right now.

+ Debbie Ball was named Athletic Director at Shaw High School. She not only makes Muscogee County history by replacing Charles Flowers - she also probably makes the witness list for Ashley Powell's sex discrimination suit.

+ The Associated Press college football poll placed Auburn in seventh - ahead of Southeastern Conference champion Georgia in eighth! So a 31-30 win matters more than a title and a trophy? Is one point in November bigger than a missed three-pointer at Louisiana State in October?

+ Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff were named the new co-anchors of "ABC World News Tonight." Somewhere in Georgia, Casey Jones pulled out a notebook and began writing Plan B -- with a letter to CBS News.

+ Instant message to the 13^th Street Barbeque in Ladonia: You're kidding, right? I mean, that sign outside which says, "Nothing says I love you like pork"?! That thinking might work for members of Congress, but....

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