Ants....The Breakfast of Champions

Friends:
Ants…
The Breakfast of Champions

Today I ate ants for breakfast.

Not only did I eat "with" them, I ate them. No, it's not a joke or another outburst of lunacy in protest against inflationary food prices. The small, stealthy creatures had taken up residence in the box of golden raisins I use to flavor my daily cardboard intake...no, not really cardboard, but it's about as tasteless as I suspect cardboard is... Post All-Bran, that marvelous cereal of fiber that at this age brings a smile to one's face. Enough about my cereal.

The ants were microscopic and blended well with the raisins. I’m sure they were about as tasteless as the cereal, though I tried not to imagine it. I just ate them anyway. Like a lot of things, if you think about it too much, you won't do it. So, I decided not to think too much, but "Just Do It." I used not to think at all, and I am still repenting of some of the things I did without thinking about them first! There was that time in New Orleans...Whoa, the skeletons are rattling, but that’s another story !!

Ants are survivors of the highest order. I think mine were of Italian descent from the Family of Formicidae. Moreover, they are as ubiquitous as weeds. Go anywhere, look down, and there they are: everywhere, like Italians. They’re so small as not to be a threat to you. Squish go the ants...see how gooda you feela?

Ants are like roaches, those indestructible relics of antiquity we real estate tycoons have been compared to. A now-bankrupt friend, living on an island without extradition laws, once remarked,

"Bud, we're like roaches...they try to flush us down, but we won't go."

The epilogue, of course, to that is the banks are currently doing a pretty good job of ridding the world of real estate roaches...we may go down this time! Only my opinion, of course.

Ants may be small, but they have one hell of a work ethic, since they know their time is short. They are tireless Olympian athletes...just watch one tote a load of food ten times its size. They have tiny waists and zero body fat (probably due to their preference for fruit of the vine!), and they have no tolerance for laziness. Fear? They have none. Once bitten, twice shy. Yes, Americans could learn great lessons from ants...I already have, reinforced by remembering the time when fire ants crawled up my pants leg and...well, you get the picture. It was truly a sight to behold!

They say that "you are what you eat," so does that mean I could become an ant? Well, that might be a little hyperbolic, but Oh, to have that energy again...but then, is it possible that we also "become what we believe?" Some affirm it. Imagine the possibilities.

One last thing about ants that is worth of remembering: They serve Queens, Ladies on Thrones, and supply them day and night with everything necessary for Royalty. And I think, without complaint. If ~ and I say “if” ~ there is a lesson here for men, it might be...”stifle the conversation and bring the cash home to mama.” (Girls, you owe me for this one!)

Today I ate ants, The Breakfast of Champions...I plan to live forever!

Bud
July 17, 2008