Thanks to my Answer Man™, Will Campbell, the giant ant has been identified as a carpenter ant. Unfortunately for me, carpenter ants are voracious eaters, unlike their close relatives, the Carpenters ants. (Ooops. I just realized I accidentally made a REALLY tasteless jab at Karen’s anorexia. Not intended.)
Anyway, Minger was making me feel bad when he asked me if I’d released the ant yet. The truth is, no, after two days, I still haven’t let it go. Minger said I was being cruel to the ant to just capture it/exploit its image on my website and starve/suffocate it to death in my plastic contained. I had actually been planning to show it to the neighbors (ask them if they’d seen any in their place), but I was all grumpy last night after getting trapped in the elevator and tonight I stayed at the office until almost midnight (working on my 15 page paper).
But when I got home from the office tonight, I checked on it and it’s still alive.
Soooo, this is what I decided to do: Feed and water the ant. And give it fresh air. Granted, I fed it green onions and left a few drops of water and I know it’s still in captivity and that it still might die, but it’s really not my intent to kill the ant. I might let it go tomorrow if I get back at a decent hour so I am not running around outside in the dark with a plastic container.
But let’s be clear about something… just because I fed it, gave it water, and air, doesn’t mean that the giant ant is my pet.
Think of it as a temporary hostage.
Who knows? I just might have to moonlight as a really bad insect terrorist, since I can’t bring myself to just kill it and be a Terminator.
I’ll give an update tomorrow. Yes, I’m going to say it… I’ll be back!
Whatever you do, don’t name the ant.
The ant shall not be named!
Oh no as penance for that anorexic singer reference you totally need to name it Karen now. Or maybe Woody. And just in case it say patooey to your green onions and water diet, they purportedly go for syrup, honey, jelly, meat, fruit and other dead bugs.