A LESSON ABOUT BOUNDARIES...
Once upon a time there was an ant named Lou.
One day Lou walked out her front door and noticed that a large toadstool had sprouted up right next to her door. Suddenly, Lou had a great idea. She would turn that toadstool into a nice big table! Lou was an artsy ant and this would be the perfect place for her to sit and paint. So she polished it up and made it nice and clean. She, then, found several big rocks to use as seats. She even found a small acorn shell and filled it with tiny flowers to make a pleasant center-piece. The next day, she planned on spending all morning seated at her new art table with her new watercolor set.
However, Lou's fancy new table was soon noticed by everyone else.
Once the the other bugs noticed the big table, they became interested in using it for themselves.
Being a nice bug, Lou decided that it would be selfish to not offer the table to her friends and neighbors. Especially because some of the reasons they wanted it seemed much more important than Lou's little hobby. After all, her afternoon tinkering with watercolors was no match for the Ant Colony Community Beautification Banquet or the National Bug and Worm Alliance Counsel meeting. Then there was the Adult Caterpillar Literacy class, the Locust AA meetings, the Doodle Bug Club, and so forth. Suddenly hundreds of bugs were coming out of the woodwork to use Lou's table.
So Lou, just took her paints and put them away and made a place for the little old gnats who needed a place to play gin rummy.
Afterall, it would be selfish to tell them to leave...right?
Then one day on the way to BugMart, she noticed something that she never noticed before.
There were toadstools EVERYWHERE! There were big ones, little ones, wide ones-- just the right size for bug tables! There were enough toadstools for almost every bug for miles around!
So Lou, realized that she wasn't selfish to want to use her own table. The other bugs took advantage of her because she never stood up for herself. She would go home right then and take back what was hers!
So Lou marched back home. Her antennae fidgeted wildly as her thoughts raced. Once she got home, she saw that her front yard was filled with all sorts of bugs waiting to use her table. One roach barked, "Hey, the bathroom is out of toilet paper and we could use some snacks, Lou!"
Lou spoke quietly at first, "Excuse me, I would like to use my table now."
The crowd buzzed noisily ignoring her polite plea.
"Excuse me, I would like to use my table now!"
No response.
"Excuse me, I would like to use my table now! PLEASE!"
Standing on a nearby rock, Lou shouted, "HELLO, HELLO! This is my table and I want you all to go. There are lot's of other tables. You can get your own!"
They still ignored her.
Then in an eruption of pent-up frustration and anger she freaked out. Running towards the table, mid-stride she opened her mandibles and snapped the leg off of a spider had been using the table as a place to sit and drool. She then pounced like panther to the top of the table clearing the the table with one terrible swish of the bloody arachnid appendage.
Their maxilla hit the floor and they gawked at Lou standing in the middle of the table.
Seething with fury, she spat the leg out and glowered like a demonic wasp "LISTEN YOU IDIOTIC, SELF-ABSORBED, LAZY, FREELOADING JERKS! GET YOUR FILTHY THORAXES OFF MY TABLE OR I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU ALL! (Perhaps, she was bit dramatic but it never the less, she got them to shut up!)
After a long pause, the mob let out a unanimous "Humph!". Then, they grudgingly packed up their things and left.
One fat green beetle remarked as she left, "You are selfish and your paintings look like poo!"
The spider didn't move because it was dead. Besides, bugs kill each other all the time and no one cares.
So, Lou cleaned up the mess and fixed the rocks and filled her little acorn with fresh flowers.
The sun was shining, and the air was fresh...
... it was quiet... peaceful...
...she stared at the clean white paper spread out over her wonderful table...
and for the life of her, she couldn't think of a single thing to paint...
3 comments:
BRILLIANT!!! (and subtle too...ahem......)
I bet if Lou had ant sisters they would think she was the coolest, smartest, brilliant-est, and most fascinating insect in the whole animalia kingdom.
TO LOU:
Paint that picture Lou!! (but don't show it to anyone, cuz next thing ya know, you'll be asked to paint all the posters for the big homecoming weevil bowl!)
p.s. i love you and i thank god everyday that i'm a part of your phylum.
I love Lou!
When the moon shall have faded out from the sky, and the sun shall shine at noonday a dull cherry red, and the seas shall be frozen over, and the icecap shall have crept downward to the equator from either pole . . . when all the cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe; then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, the sole survivor of animal life on this our earth -- a melancholy bug.
- - - William Jacob Holland "The Moth Book" 1903
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
- - - Richard Bach
We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.
Gerald Brenan
Ants are good citizens, they place group interests first.
Clarence Day
If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?
Marie Dressler
When many work together for a goal, Great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed By a single colony of ants.
Saskya Pandita
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau
I love your story Kacy!!! I can see it as an animated short, can't you?????
If this blog does nothing more than get my two sisters to write witty and smart comments then I have reached my ultimate goal in writing this stuff in the first place...
You guys are my very best friends.
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