I got an ant farm for Christmas. My kids laughed, and they told their friends, and they laughed, but my family came through, and on Christmas morning I opened an ant farm. It has a main chamber and two auxiliary chambers. I set it up just like the pictures showed.
A few weeks ago, in March, I got the ants for my birthday. Apparently, the farm didn’t come with ants, a detail we overlooked. They are harvester ants, and I worked with an ant guy in Raleigh to select the species. He wanted pictures of the farm and info on where the farm would be positioned in relation to lights and windows and such. He considered Mobile’s humidity and suggested harvester ants. I pretended like I gave his suggestion some thought and agreed. They are, right now, working diligently over my shoulder from their spot on the kitchen counter. Every day all of us stop in front of the farm to comment about the work they’ve done overnight. Last night my wife and I spent a while on my new favorite AI called Claude. I call him Claudius because he feels Roman to me, and learned that ants can go a month without food, they really need water, they nap for two minutes at a time, and their poop is microscopic. I’ve dropped hints about needing a big magnifying glass so we can see them up close, identify each of them and name them. Laugh all you want at my ant farm, but I’ve become very proud and protective of the health and vitality of my ants.
Last night as my wife was staring in at the ants, she made some thoughtful observations about them. Each of the things she said, grammatically speaking, ended with a period and not a question mark. I remained focused on whatever I was doing, and I noticed a sudden change in her body language as she quickly stood up and walked away. My inner alarms sounded. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked. Well, apparently, in my house, my wife’s thoughtful observations about ants deserve acknowledgements from me. Some sort of something suggesting I heard her and am now also considering her shared observations, and that sound is, I think, this: “Huh.” For example, when my wife says, “That ant, I think his name is Bruno, is carrying a grain of sand all the way from the main chamber to the little water chamber and found a perfect spot to put it.” I should reply “Huh.” Apparently, based on her tone and body language in the debriefing of my errant ways, that “Huh” matters a lot. So, all last night I offered lots of Huhs and gave some extras that I asked her to bank for when I forget to reply Huh to her future sentences that end in periods and not question marks. I was told, however, that Huhs don’t bank, which is a shame.
So, get an ant farm. Don’t forget the ants. Don’t forget to Huh after your wife says something about the ants, and it gets uncomfortably quiet in the room.
I’m Cam Marston, and I’m just trying to keep it real.
