Ant!

Recently I noticed this massive ant crawling across the kitchen floor. Obviously the correct thing to do was to take photos of it. I have several but this is the best one.

It was a VERY big ant. Must have been better than half an inch long. Probably longer. Maybe even three quarters of an inch. Big.

Now, as a former child and therefore an expert on ants and ant-like creatures, I’m fully aware that an ant like this is a solitary beast and if you happen to see one sauntering across your kitchen floor, there’s no cause for alarm. There won’t be a infestation of ant larvae in your underwear drawer or a huge pack of she-ants nibbling at the leftover cat food the next morning. This is a rogue ant.

Which reminds me of a hazy childhood memory. My father, having observed a nearly identical ant on his kitchen floor, decided that rather than stomping the life out of it or spraying it with Raid™ he would put it into a jar and keep it captive. Something the size of a baby food maybe. I can’t be sure. Another thing that I can’t be sure of was the status of the ant. Was it a pet? Prisoner? Hostage? Experiment? It was hard to say. My father was never unkind to the ant. In fact he was very solicitous of its needs. Once a day, my father soaked a Q-tip™ with sugar water which the ant devoured with relish (as near as we could tell). Much to the consternation of my mother, the ant resided on the kitchen table for many months. It may seem odd that my mother would put up with this but truth be told, this activity was one of the more minor eccentricities exhibited by my father.

The ant witnessed hundreds of family meals and I hope became a bit attached to us as we did to it. But one day, it was announced, that it was time to release the ant back into the wild. With little ceremony, we placed the open baby food jar out by the front porch and the ant scurried away without so much as a backward glance. I always suspected that a ransom had been paid.