Chapter 1: The Ant Farm

Sunday, April 8, 1984

Mom was bustling around the kitchen, working on Sunday dinner and I was sitting at the table pretending to do my homework when my grandparents pulled into the driveway. It's sort of our Sunday tradition: After church, Grammy drags Pappy to as many as a half dozen yard sales and flea markets and when they're done they come to our place for dinner. They almost always bring something back for one of us— a piece of "milk glass" for my mother's collection, some obscure tool or gadget for my father's garage workshop, a garish painting to hang in the dining room— it's truly pot luck. That day was my turn.

Grammy was always excited about whatever "find" they came up with, but that particular Sunday she was nearly ecstatic. She didn't even wait to get up the steps onto the back porch before shouting, "Wait 'til you see what we found for you, Adam!"

"No need to tell the whole neighborhood, Mama," my mother admonished. "He's right here in the kitchen."

They bustled through the door and Grammy, as always, made a beeline to my seat at the table for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Pappy ambled over behind her and tousled my hair. "Hiya kid! Feast your eyes on this!"

My curiosity was piqued. Pappy goes along with Grammy every Sunday for the fresh air and exercise— "And there's always someone selling tools," he told me once— but he rarely shares her enthusiasm for the gifts she brings home. He winked, and with a flourish revealed the cardboard box he had been holding behind his back. I recognized it immediately: A vintage 1970's-era Uncle Milton's Ant Farm!

Now I understood my grandparents' excitement. When I was much younger, maybe five or six, I had wanted one of these in the worst way. Unfortunately for me, the age recommendation on the box was eight and up. Looking back on it now, I guess "tantrum" is a good word for it. At the time, however, I felt that I was simply standing up for my rights as a child of maturity ahead of my peers. The fact that I was demonstrating this maturity by laying on the floor of Toys-R-Us and screaming my lungs out didn't help my case at all. My grandparents had been with us that evening and lobbied in my favor despite my acting out, but my parents held their ground and we went home empty handed. By the time I turned eight my interests had moved on, and I hadn't even given ant farms a passing thought since. Now, however, holding the box again brought back wistful memories.

NEW!
CONNECTABLE
FASCINATING
ANT FARM

You take the farm, we mail the ants!

See the LIVE ANTS:
Dig tunnels
Build bridges
Move mountains

FUN for the whole FAMILY!

Break resistant
Escape Proof!

A section of the bottom left corner of the box was faded and had a yellowish tint as if the box had spent a number of years mostly covered, perhaps in an attic. Otherwise the box could have come directly from the store that very day.

I swept my erstwhile homework aside and set the box almost reverently on the table. The colorful top half of the box was still taped to the plain brown bottom half with what appeared to be the original, now yellowed and brittle, Scotch tape. I gently separated the barely-adhering tape from the box with my pencil and slid the top half off. I was half afraid that the structure might have been broken over the years despite the well-kept condition of the box. My fear was unfounded, though, and nestled in the bottom half of the box, there it all was: the classic green pre-assembled plastic "farm" sandwiched between clear plastic plates; two matching green snap-on 'feet' to hold the farm upright; a clear plastic bag of white sand with the" Uncle Milton" logo printed in blue; a red 12-inch long plastic straw; a six-inch long syringe; a smaller, re-sealable plastic bag of some granular brown and black powder labeled "Ant Food - Keep Dry"; an 8.5x11 instruction sheet; and a smaller sheet labeled "Ant Order Form." I picked up each item and gave it a quick inspection. Everything appeared to be like new other than the bag of sand, which had a small tear in the corner and had leaked about a quarter of its contents into the box. I also noticed a single odd, oversized grain of sand inside the bag. It was easily three or four times the size of the rest and was covered in bright blue spots. Any further examination was curtailed by my mother, who declared that dinner was almost ready.

"Put your toy back in the box and gather up your -ahem- 'homework' then set the table." She had made little quote signs in the air with her fingers at the word homework— had she known I was waffling instead of studying? I felt my face redden.

"Busted!" Grammy tittered.

"Did you think I failed to notice," Mom asked, "That you have 'solved for x' on the exact same algebra problem five times?"

"I, um, well..." At that point there wasn't much I could say. Grammy was right— I was busted. I stopped trying to say anything and simply shrugged.

Mom continued giving me that 'angry mom' look for a moment, then grinned. "The table isn't setting itself, buster! Next week you are the chef for Sunday dinner."

I retrieved a quart-sized 'Zip-lock' bag from the pantry and poured the spilled sand into it, and put the pieces of the ant farm back in the box. The funky blue-spotted ... whatever ... was forgotten for the moment. I replaced the lid on the box, gathered up my algebra book and notes, and set the table.

After dinner we all made small talk while waiting for the weekly phone call from Dad. For years, he had worked as an electrician for Westinghouse, but at the beginning of the year he had been laid off along with several hundred others. After six weeks of unemployment he got lucky and landed a short-term job as a contractor with Amoco, helping to build a huge natural gas plant in the United Arab Emirates. We all hated not having him around, but the money was too good to pass up— he was making almost two years' worth of his Westinghouse wages in five months!