Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore --
While I nodded, nearly napping,
Suddenly I was being eaten alive by a swarm of ants.
This is all true. Tiny, tiny ants no larger than electrons started eating my foot.It was a horror show. So horrible that it is fitting to steal the words from Edgar Allan Poe to set the stage. Poe, as you all know, wrote “The Raven,” a tragicpoem that concludes with the raven eating Poe’s foot. (At least I think that’s how it ends. Poe never ends anything with big laughs.)
Is this some evolutionary thing I wondered, weak and weary – hundreds of these little demons giving up their crumbs and sugar for a ketone diet. With bites from my foot promoting them up the taxonomic ladder to deer tick. There was a queue of them stretching out to several meters licking their lips and patiently waiting their turn, knowing that my foot was the loaves and fishes they’d been hoping for. Ant hallelujahs were evident all around.
Anyway, I sat there benumbed thinking of how many years I spent removing crumbs and sugar and anything a tiny ant maw could devour. I also remember only days earlier watching a dozen little demons carry off a fly, parading it across my kitchen counter like a bug Mardi Gras float.
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