Being the Punchline: A Tale of an Ant or Two
A friend of mine threw me right under the proverbial bus when she posed a question, a riddle of sorts, as she poured more wine around the table of 8, plus me.
“If you’re Jill and your adorable white Jeep Wrangler is infested with ants, what do you do?”
Round and round the conversation went with no one guessing my true punchline. And me, well, I just turned beet red and sipped my sparkling water.
Yes, a former designated-everything was me.
From care-giver
To people-pleasing
To safety-first, not sure about fun.
Responsible-for-all
That was so me.
You’ll have to wait for that punchline for just a bit as I share with you what brought this decade old tale to my mind today.
Why I share it with you now…
Something that just makes me shrug, yes, a bit sheepishly.
But hey, live and learn. You’ll understand that old me soon but first the current me.
In the early-dark hours,
Lost in my writer’s web
I raised my mug of half-full green tea toward my lips,
bag forever set to seep within.
I know tea-guru!
Shame shame on me but that’s also not the point of this share.
Instead, what matters was the dude just inches from his Moby-Dick moment with me.
In the soft MacBook Pro light
I happened to see
a medium-sized black ant
Struggling to swim
To find tea-bag ground
Or drown.
Now, the old me would have squashed him perhaps
or at least had the heebeegeebees the rest of the day.
Looking frantically around,
scratching a mind-f*ck itch,
waiting for more multi-legged creatures to descend.
This me simply offered a hello,
moving the liquid a tilt out of his way
helping him on the tea bag
In that most subtle way.
When he’d climbed on board that green-tea train,
I took a break and stepped outside
Into a light, misty pre-dawn rain.
With a slow hand and a grin,
I placed both ant and bag
gently in my garden bed
Near my cherry tomatoes
And sprouting kale.
I watched briefly as the ant crawled onto a bright green leaf and moved on with his day.
Not attached to his near drowning,
not upset by his change of scene,
not considering, bemoaning, worried over –
At least in my human mind,
the displacement from his family.
I had to laugh softly at my writer’s imagination
Something I enJOY with my baby goats all the time.
This is how animated classics
like Finding Nemo
are born.
And a children’s book even, one I am working on.
Giving human qualities to a fish, an ant, a goat, you name it.
That is what we human beings do…
Toss in a heck of a lot of overthinking, suffering and questioning –
Why me?
And Voilà!
A dramatic storyline,
Can’t you see?
My life used to be so full of drama,
over-analyzing every little thing
and wondering why I was constantly being punished just for being me.
Oh hello, victim mentality.
But the real tragedy in this story, is not the little green tea dude.
He lived to see the sun rise on this day…
No, the tragedy I write today is darker,
And involved a party of ants,
Not just one.
Plus, me and my cute white Jeep Wrangler.
The very Jeep my girlfriend so cleverly made into a punchline.
Or was it I,
The actually brunt of that joke?
Hmm… read on to find out more.
Years back now, I parked on a Coral Gables street.
Metered parking along a rather busy two-lane downtown road where a sensible driver knows to access the parking from one side of the street due to the angle of the spots.
Well, I was supposed to go to a light,
Take a left
Then a right.
And another,
And another
To do a square-dance around we go.
Only to pray there’d actually be space upon the conclusion of my do-si-do.
But that day, well, I was running late,
Saw a space free up
And pulled a left into a right-angled spot
Because why not?!
That was how I lived –
dangerously…
Wielding my purple pen
And taking a spot some-what inappropriately.
Like in writing, some rules are simply meant to bend.
I know a dangerous game I play but on this day it served me after my hour long drive in my fun little ride.
Until I jumped out,
slammed the door closed
And had to press pause on my haste
as I sure as sh*t saw a flash of movement within.
But what?
I reopened the Wrangler's door
I admit – carefully.
And stared shocked, horrified,
as the cloth seat that had cradled my ass just seconds ago,
lined with a marching row of big-ass black ants along one visible side.
Oh hell, to the no.
My body did a revolting shiver-move in the sticky Florida heat.
Heebeegeebees doesn’t even begin to cover the creepy-crawls coating my skin thicker than SPF50 lotion on a hot, humid day.
I’d been perched on top of a line of ants that looked disgustingly-impressive to me.
But not just ants a-marching,
As I squinted,
Hell no, not leaning in –
to see what I truly did not wish to witness.
Worker ants were busy as can be
carrying white things that –
Oh, I kid you not –
Where their Queen’s – eww
eggs.
I slammed the door closed with force and thought
gross, gross, gross
Stomping and storming and
shivering my way to my appointment.
I had not another choice.
Not in that moment,
Not in my line of sight.
All I could see were ants-marching
Not a pretty sight.
In daylight
In my now emblazoned memory.
I wasn’t a bug girl.
Camping? Ah please!
So not for me.
I’d been fishing just once
And swore I could hear the worm
Screaming bloody murder
So no, that was just not me.
I preferred creature comforts
Not creatures crawling
If you please.
And as I entered my first stop, a hair salon,
where typically I relaxed,
chatted with Dee
and flipping enJOYed myself
All I could do was brush my skin,
Itch my knee
And think,
No one to rescue me!
Today, my appointment inched by
As my overthinking mind
Processed the indisputable fact
I had to get back on that bloody seat.
And that was a feat
I had to wrap my head around –
tightly.
Not to mention my rebelling body.
All I could contemplate,
as my longtime hairdresser styled me,
was how the hell I’d get rid of the all those ants
And how many were there that I couldn’t even see?!
My next appointment,
A doctor who did not tolerate tardiness –
I know, how completely apropo
Dictated I had to figure this sh*t out
And mighty fast.
So halfway through my blow out,
the answer came.
Carwash.
Suck those bastards out.
I had no shame.
I’m not proud of my lack of ant-respect,
But that was then
And this is a different me you see
And well, this tale has only just begun to unravel
And reveal
What happened next...
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Photo Credit: Vlad Tchompalov @tchompalov