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Wayside_Wisdom
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Greetings! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Solenopsis invicta, but my friends call me Freddy; Freddy, the Fire Ant. Now, before your fears make you quit reading my message, let me tell you a little about myself. I can’t understand why people are so afraid of me, and so nasty. I’m really quite small, you see, only about a quarter of an inch long! So why would you fear something that is only a tiny fraction of your size? Your big toe is larger than all my friends and I put together! Besides, I can’t bite you long-distance or electronically, anyway! Each of God’s creatures has its own job to do, you know. Birds fly, fish swim, and people do ... well, whatever it is that you do, like have dominion over the rest of us. Well, we fire ants have our own special task to do, too. All day, every day, my friends and I – and there are thousands of us in each colony – gather seeds, small plants, crickets and other small insects. Then we take them back home to feed the others, especially our queen. It is very important that she be well-fed and healthy because she is our leader and without her, none of us could survive. (At least that’s what she tells us!) We haven’t always lived in the southern U.S. Our wimpy, harmless cousins are natives here. But the ancestors of our superior race, the Red Imported Fire Ants, lived in the jungles of South America. Their life there was hard, though, because there were so many enemies that kept killing them off. So, some of our brave foreants stowed away on a Brazilian freighter bound for Mobile Alabama. It was a long and tiring voyage but when they arrived they knew they had reached the Land of Plenty; a land filled with all types of tasty living flesh and no enemies! So, they went forth, multiplied greatly, and spread throughout the southern U.S., building underground colonies wherever they went. But, for some reason, human beings soon became hostile. They attacked us viciously, destroying our homes and trying to wipe us out using chemical and biological weapons. We had no choice but to defend our way of life and to protect our over-fed queen. We had to fight to preserve our ‘hole in the dirt’ homes. We were willing to go to war to preserve our freedom to swarm in mindless hordes! And so we did - and do to this day! First, we bite any threatening flesh to gain a secure position. Then we fire our secret weapons – carried deep inside our bellies – that inject a burning, itching, painful toxin into the tissues of the attacker. The one who has been stung usually retreats quickly, leaving our homes, our queen and our freedoms secure once again. But we don’t really mean you any harm, you understand. It’s just a nasty little habit of ours. We truly are sorry for all the pain, burning, discomfort, blistering, infections and allergic reactions that we have caused the human race. But, consider for a moment: what choice do we have? So, let’s let by-gones be by-gones. Can’t we just be friends? mshr 11/10/2006 Previous Index of Stories Next
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