Interview with an Ant
Some ants call him Summer Squash. Others call him White Smash or the Antecutioner. It’s well known in colonies far and wide that The Giant in the house is an ant murdering psychopath. Yet despite the evil and deathly aura of The House, the lure of the honey bear, the box of Kellogs Corn Pops, the poppyseed muffins, the Graham Cracker crumbs, and a brief taste of Children’s Cough Syrup are too strong to resist. Below is an anterview with one brave insect that consistently risks its life by crawling through the walls of murderer’s alley in search of warmth, crumbs and the meaning of life. The interview takes place in his living space within the ant colony.
Why do you think The Giant murders your kind? Why doesn’t he just open his house and let you live together in harmony?
ANT #2,945,832: He’s just pure evil. I’m convinced of it. All we’re doing is coming in for a little escape from the elements, maybe grabbing a few crumbs to bring back for the youngsters. We’ve got millions in our colony alone, so it’s nice to have the additional resources to help sustain our population. It’s not easy living in the wild. And with a house full of food right there (he points both antennas towards the house), I guess it’s worth the risk to go in there and get what we need. On the other hand, I personally think we have everything we need out here in the dirt. But I’m different like that. In a perfect world, we could go in the house and grab a few things without the fear of being butchered. I don’t understand why there’s not more of an open door policy. We’re just trying to survive. Is there something wrong with that?
How have you managed to survive coming and going in the house? Have you had any brushes with death?
ANT #2,945,832: Too many to count. I’ve seen hundreds, no thousands, of my friends squashed as if they were just a nuisance. There was one incident in particular, we call it the Death Mist Massacre. The Giant came outside and watched us filing out of the dirt and onto the patio. I’ll be the first to admit, us ants are a bunch of followers. We tend to take the same path into the house, so it’s easy for The Giant to see a long line of us and either wash us away or stomp on us from time to time. I don’t understand why we blindly follow each other. Perhaps it’s our nature. One ant will ask, “Hey where we going?” and the other will answer “I don’t know I’m just following this guy ahead of me.” It’s the same conversation on and on up the line, all the way to the house. No one really has any plan, it’s just go, go, go, then die. But you see, I’m an outlier. I do my own thing. It’s safer that way. Anyway, back to the the Death Mist story.
So all of a sudden, I’m making my way to the house, off to the side of course, and down comes this mist. I mean, it was awful. Ants scattered everywhere, choking and yelling and screaming “why? why?” and “the Antmanity, the Antmanity” and other horrible things I don’t want to mention. Antennas went haywire. Ants everywhere fought as hard as they could, legs kicking until their dying last breath. I stood there and watched it all go down. It was horrific. A thousand ants died that day. Everyone who could retreated back to the colony. It took us hours to gather the nerve to go back out there.
Then there was the time The Giant caught me in the sink. We made eye contact, and I made a run for it. He turned on the water and I went down the sink. It was awful, but I kept my wits about me. A few moments later he turned on the, um, what do you call that thing? that mechanical doodad that rips things to shreds? Anyway, he turned that machine on and blades started whirling around me. I managed to jump onto the wall, squeeze through a crack, and crawl into the dishwasher. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
We’ve heard about the popularity of the dishwasher. Why is it so appealing to ants?
ANT #2,945,832: The dishwasher is the best. There’s tons of food on the plates, plenty of water to drink. Every once in a while, the water flows in and then the unbearable heat occurs, killing off everyone in there. My strategy is to go in there for short periods of time. In and out. The ants that linger in there too long don’t make it out alive. In order to survive, and this goes for anywhere in the house, you gotta play it smart. Move around a lot, crawl in the darker corners, when walking in the open always, and i mean always, stay on the dark cracks and crevices. Never ever crawl on the wall or across the floor. I’ve seen ants crawl on toilets. Toilets! I try to warn them about crawling on white objects, but they don’t listen, perhaps their antennas are faulty. It’s funny, before we ever leave the colony, we all go through Safety Training. Every inch of the house has been mapped out. We know where all the hot spots and danger spots are located. But you should see the horseplay that goes on during these training seminars. Hardly anyone listens to the instructor. The Queen Ant asked me to lead a class awhile back, I said “No Thanks.” No one listens so why bother.
Sounds like you have a rare will power that most ants don’t possess.
ANT #2,945,832: Yeah, you could say that. But it comes at a cost. Being a rogue ant certainly isn’t as fun as being a follower. I don’t get to enjoy the camaraderie that occurs when finding something sweet. I’ve never participated in a honey raid. I tell ya, that’s the stupidest thing ants do. They know most will die by going into the honey. It’s too sticky. But I guess some ants have no self-control. I mean, we don’t live long anyway right? The lifespan of an ant is only about 90 days. I’ll be 92 tomorrow. Call it luck, call it antelligence, whatever. I enjoy life. I’ll take the risks I have to, but I’m smart about it as well.
Any advice you want to give to the younger ants?
ANT #2,945,832: I tell young ants all the time to investigate the garden. Sure there are other predators around, but the dirt is our true home. Everyone seems to want to live the life of luxury inside The House, and many lose sight of our true nature. Sometimes I think that we aren’t supposed to be in The House. Hey, I understand why it’s so appealing to the majority of our population. I get it. But we tend to gloss over the death and tragedy that occurs there as well. Is it worth the risk to bring back a cracker crumb to the colony when at the same time hundreds of your friends die during the mission? Sure ants get the hero’s welcome when they return. They sit around and tell their tales of fortitude, how they escaped certain death while carrying something that weighed twice its body weight. As always, stories get embellished. I get the appeal of that. But, we kind of gloss over the lives of all the ants that die every day from being in The House. I ask this: what’s the matter with staying in the dirt? It has everything we need right? It’s our true home. I don’t know. I guess the lure of The House is too strong. Maybe there will be a time, not in my lifetime of course, but someday, where we live solely off the earth, and don’t rely on the scraps of creatures like The Giant. Many might say that would make life too boring, and that adventure is in our nature. I guess I can’t argue with that. Like I said, I understand the appeal of it all. Maybe I’m just old, and wanting things to be a bit more simple.
