ColdFusion Muse

Seed Man Vs. the Ants

I was busy writing this proposal and I was on my fourth or fifth page. I reached for some sunflower seeds. If you know me, you know that I eat unsalted roasted sunflower seeds as my favorite snack. I especially like them when I'm engrossed in writing something long that takes concentration. Anyway, it was about 9:20 and I had had a few mouthfuls of seeds already. Something made me double take this time and I looked at my seeds again. I always work under low light so I had not noticed that the seeds were moving. I turned on the overhead light and the seeds were full of tiny red ants. They were delicious, but a little spicy. Anyway, I thought, "where are they coming from???". I went over to where I keep the bag of seeds and sure enough it was full of red ants. So I started searching around.

I have a 2 drawer unit for hanging files in my office. On top of that is a 3 tiered shelf where I keep books and office supplies, and yes - my little bag of sunflower seeds. It turns out that a small bag of seeds had spilled unnoticed in the back of my shelf - the second shelf up. The seeds where there in the corner, a little pile of goodness. They had also escaped that shelf and fallen down to the first shelf... where they had again eluded capture and made it all the way to the base of the shelves. Each pile of seeds was an bonanza of sustenance apparently - because I found I had been growing a 3 story ant colony. I wish the my 2 boys could have seen it. The bag was from about a year ago (I had lost track of it - and I don't eat those kind any more) so I don't know how long it had been there. Apparently quite a while - since the seeds were embedded in a kind of "dust" that must have been the results of chewing and harvesting - or maybe piled up like leaves for ant children to roll in. There must have been a few thousand ants per shelf. I'm not sure what ants do for work or entertainment, but these ants seemed quite busy and well-adjusted.

Well, things went from bad to worse. I started taking apart the shelf to clean it. I got everything off the shelves and vacuumed out the ants and seeds. But then I wanted to take the top unit off - so I unscrewed the little fasteners and lifted. It was kind of stuck, so I climbed on top of the base (the hanging folders) to get more pressure on the top unit (the shelves were all out by this point). I finally got it to come up off the pins, but I had trouble setting it down so it wouldn't topple. I thought I had it and I prepared to get down - reaching for my knee to pull up on my pant leg. I didn't make it... the shelf tipped and I stepped straight down and planted my foot on the floor to steady the shelf. Naturally this ripped the seat of my pants from front to back.

So here I sit enjoying the draft and contemplating buying a new pair of pants. I guess the upside is that I spent the next hour and a half throwing things out and giving my office a good general cleaning. So... if you see a man in green pants looking grim and darting for his car while running sideways or backward, give him a break and look away.