Of Ants…

Rules ants should observe. 

1.       Stay outside. 

2.       Be small.

3.       Stay outside. 

4.       Be shiny. 

5.       Work hard.

6.       Did I mention stay outside?

7.       Never bite.

8.       I mean, never, ever, ever bite.

The ants in Brazil do not conform to these rules.  I suppose the ants elsewhere might not either, but up until moving to Brazil I had spent all my meager ant-observing time in Oregon. 

Although Brazil is full of ants, three made the biggest impact.

Ant number one (pictured above) conformed to a few of the ant rules.  It was shiny, never bit me, and, I’m assuming, worked hard.  Unfortunately, it failed to observe rule number two.  I don’t suppose I can really blame the ant for being at least two inches long.  To be honest, I found the ants to be kind of sweet.  I could observe them and contemplate the verses in the Bible about ants, without regretting standing still long enough to do so.

And without straining my eyes since they were large enough to be seen from a helicopter.

The second ant, which made a biting impression, was the fire ant.  These nasty little things were small, shiny and did for the most part stay outside.  They broke rules number seven and eight.  Yes, I do realize rules number seven and eight are basically the same, but eight rules are far more impressive than seven.

If you accidentally stepped into the midst of a swarm of fire ants, you very quickly became aware of your mistake.  This happened quite often since fire ants were everywhere, doing who knows what while they waited for unsuspecting humans to fall into their trap.   I often imagined the little ant general insanely yelling for his troops to attack and bring down the giant.  They followed his lead with gusto and the ensuing pain sent us running for the nearest water faucet to wash them off and cool the burning bites. 

I have never been the type to kill a bug with my finger, but in the absence of a faucet I would grab the nasty insects off me and roll them into tiny squished balls.  Take that you nasty ant general!

The last ant to make my top three is the invader ant.

 Invader ants did not conform to the most basic of the rules laid down for ants.  So basic, it made my list of rules three times.  Three times, ants, and you still didn’t follow it.  In other words, they did not stay outside.

For reasons known only to their tiny insectoid minds, these ants would take it upon themselves to invade our porch, or a corner of our house, or our whole house.  Friends told us to welcome the invasion because the ants would carry away any other unwanted guests with them such as spiders, or centipedes. 

We weren’t too keen on having our house invaded, even if their tiny antish brains thought they were doing us a favor.  I’m sorry, but there is something about the thought of ants cutting a swath through my bed while I’m in it that cures me of seeing anything altruistic in their invasion.

No, I prefer my ants, biteless and outside.

Definitely, outside.