Not Them
Our kitchen has an infestation of ants.
Not big ones, the little black ones that cluster around a crumb and break it up so that they can each carry off a piece. Dad H. is periodically spraying bug spray in the kitchen to keep their numbers down. To this I don't object, but I don't dislike ants either. In fact, I think ants get a bad rap.
It seems a number of people agree with me, judging from the twin releases of ant movies, A Bug's Life (which I've seen many times and loved), and Antz! (which I haven't seen at all). All that aside, however, I like ants for more fundamental reasons than their narrative representation; after all, A Bug's Life and Antz! haven't completely recouped the horror quotient of THEM and "Leningen vs. the Ants."
I like ants because they don't move in straight lines. They don't. Even when they're following an ant trail, they don't move in straight lines. It's as if their six legs move on three little axles that are constantly getting pulled by dips and turns in other directions. Ant lines are not bee lines; they wind around considerable obstacles, both physical and imaginary.
Ants are fastidious, cleaner than most members of the insect world. They stand on a kitchen counter in full view of a human such as myself, wiping their nearly-invisible antennae with their front legs and using other legs to wipe the rest of themselves. In the outdoors, their seemingly disorganized mound of a home seethes with ordered activity. See, this is why I like ants: they don't move in straight lines and they don't look organized, but they're clean and they get the job done all the same.
And they're cute. There, I said it. But not, I hasten to say, when they're squirming in your mouth. I once picked up a piece of old Christmas rock candy and popped it into my mouth, only to find that something was moving and it wasn't my tongue. I spit out the candy to discover that I'd also popped a large black ant into my mouth. It looked rather disgusted and disoriented at being covered with my saliva. Well, I kinda felt the same way, so I didn't feel too sorry for him.
On the other hand, as a child I used to stir up red ant hills just to watch them panic, and meanwhile try to get them to walk on a twig I was holding. So maybe the ant-in-the-mouth adventure was karmic payback.
I dunno.
Our kitchen has an infestation of ants.
Not big ones, the little black ones that cluster around a crumb and break it up so that they can each carry off a piece. Dad H. is periodically spraying bug spray in the kitchen to keep their numbers down. To this I don't object, but I don't dislike ants either. In fact, I think ants get a bad rap.
It seems a number of people agree with me, judging from the twin releases of ant movies, A Bug's Life (which I've seen many times and loved), and Antz! (which I haven't seen at all). All that aside, however, I like ants for more fundamental reasons than their narrative representation; after all, A Bug's Life and Antz! haven't completely recouped the horror quotient of THEM and "Leningen vs. the Ants."
I like ants because they don't move in straight lines. They don't. Even when they're following an ant trail, they don't move in straight lines. It's as if their six legs move on three little axles that are constantly getting pulled by dips and turns in other directions. Ant lines are not bee lines; they wind around considerable obstacles, both physical and imaginary.
Ants are fastidious, cleaner than most members of the insect world. They stand on a kitchen counter in full view of a human such as myself, wiping their nearly-invisible antennae with their front legs and using other legs to wipe the rest of themselves. In the outdoors, their seemingly disorganized mound of a home seethes with ordered activity. See, this is why I like ants: they don't move in straight lines and they don't look organized, but they're clean and they get the job done all the same.
And they're cute. There, I said it. But not, I hasten to say, when they're squirming in your mouth. I once picked up a piece of old Christmas rock candy and popped it into my mouth, only to find that something was moving and it wasn't my tongue. I spit out the candy to discover that I'd also popped a large black ant into my mouth. It looked rather disgusted and disoriented at being covered with my saliva. Well, I kinda felt the same way, so I didn't feel too sorry for him.
On the other hand, as a child I used to stir up red ant hills just to watch them panic, and meanwhile try to get them to walk on a twig I was holding. So maybe the ant-in-the-mouth adventure was karmic payback.
I dunno.
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