An Army of Thousands

Ok, so I love how I say I won't be sharing any funny stories about my life and then the first thing I do is share one. But for those of you who received my "Hi I started a blog" e-mail yesterday, I did kind of promise to share this one so here we go...

It was supposed to be a fun way to spend a Saturday evening...that was my expectation when I agreed to go. I had no idea I was about to be assaulted. Anyway, so we put leashes on the cats (yes, they have leashes and yes they totally hate them), threw them in a box (we should really invest in a cat carrier) and loaded up the car with the necessary picnic items: blanket, frisbee, football, etc. After a quick stop at Costa Vida for dinner (have you ever had their sweet pork burritos? WOW, that is some good stuff...), we drove to Rocky Mountain Park.

I had Jacob pick a spot on the grass he thought would be good, and after spreading out the blanket we plopped down and proceded to get out the food. That's when we noticed that one corner of the blanket was now covered in black ants. In the meantime, Michael (my cat) was playing in the bushes by said corner. I insisted that we move because the ants were growing in number and I didn't want to share my dinner with them. So, we grabbed our things and moved to a picnic table nearby. What I did not know is that while Michael had been playing in the bushes, he had managed to get COMPLETELY COVERED in ants. When I picked him up as we were moving locations, the ants went into full attack mode and had at it on my arm. Feeling a lot of pricking and then intense burning sensations, I dropped Michael (don't worry, he was only a couple feet from the ground and besides, cats always land on their feet, right?) and proceded to de-ant myself, and then him (which he did NOT appreciate...he glared at me the whole time I brushed them off his coat). But by then it was too late. They mostly got my arm, but a couple made it to my shoulder and one even managed to get my toe.

Little jerks. You can't see very well in the picture, but this is the central location of the ant bites. Gross, huh? People at work were joking it looks like heroin tracks. But yeah, all in all I counted 18 bites, and MAN do they itch!

So I guess the moral of the story is don't put your blanket on top of an ant's house...they have lots of friends.