Vegas Fact #8

Vegas Fact #8
Don't make fun of the Red Fire Ants.

I know they're easy targets. Yes they're poor drivers. Bad at math. Have big noses and can't swim. But let me warn you that your words might just come back to bite you.

The Vegas Year has presented some unexpected obstacles. From bad Feng Shui water leaks to our house getting foreclosed. However the one opponent I did not take seriously were the red ants. My bad.

I'm not exactly certain when they first showed up. Probably sometime right before Christmas. Santa may have brought them. For all I know it was the ant's idea. Like maybe they asked Santa for some cat food for Christmas and so Santa dropped them off in my kitchen. I don't know. Can't we all at least agree that the ants somehow got to my kitchen? Why are you guys being such difficult readers about this?

The worst part of this story is that I had been making fun of these ants to my wife. Mainly because they walked so slowly. They seriously look so lazy and dumb compared to ants I knew growing up.

And I admit I was looking past them. Why wouldn't I? I never got to know these red ants. I only took the time to stereotype them.

So it's been a battle over the past few weeks. A minor war in our kitchen. They've been attacking an area near the cat food. Although for some reason they won't (can't?) go in the bowls. I told you they were dumb and lazy. But anytime cat food falls out of the bowl to the floor the ants are all over it.

And you know I didn't want to bring this part up, but Red Ants also don't test as well on standardized tests as do their black, brown, white and yellow counterparts.

Why can't Red Ants do all the things that black, brown, white and yellow ants can do?

(For what it's worth- It was jokes like this that pissed the ants off).

So when I go to bed the other night I look in the kitchen and see a small piece of dry cat food on the floor. And of course it's covered with lazy red ants. Rather than throw it in the garbage where they'll continue to live and prosper, I take a paper tissue, pick up the piece of food and toss the whole thing in the toilet.

I go to sleep. I wake up in the morning. There's a chill in the air. I immediately put up my brown thermal long sleeved shirt and sweat pants that I was wearing before I went to sleep and go brush my teeth.

As I'm brushing teeth, my chest starts to itch. And my stomach. My legs. And my back too. I'm covered in red ants. Fire ants.

Lazy, stupid fire ants I'll add. They may be little but those guys got them some teeth. Or stingers. But something is clearly making me dance.

Back in August I met with a woman from a television production company to discuss shooting the Vegas Year as a reality TV show. There were one or two good reasons for us to do it. Plenty of bad ones. But I gotta say the whole thing would have been worth it if only I could have the footage of me on this morning, running through the house screaming covered in ants.

Thank God my wife was home.

We stopped counting the bites on me at 17. They're all over.

As I stare at all these red marks it feels sort of insulting. Sort of humiliating. Sort of itchy.

Did I deserve to be bitten? Well, I did get a little cocky with them. I was making a little too much fun of them. Maybe I did go too far.

I certainly expressed some anti-red ant sentiments based on stereotypes without actually taking the time to get to know them, And for that I apologize to the red ant community.

Even if they're a bunch of antennae wearing, red biting, three pairs of legs, cat food stealing, little a-holes.