Chapter 3: A Bike Ride

After leaving my dirty shoes on the front porch, I took a lightning fast shower and donned clean clothes. Moments later I sat at my desk and started going over the assembly instructions for the ant farm. I had skimmed over them before, so there were no surprises. The whole process would only take a few minutes. I placed a few sheets of newspaper across my desk, a habit I had from my hobby of building and painting model airplanes, and began.

Step 1: Turn upside-down and remove base. Attach the base to the top end and use as a stand.

Piece of cake.

Step 2: Cut a small corner off bag of sand with scissors. Carefully pour into lower half of Ant Farm until filled.

This should have been easy, as well. There were little tufts of cotton stuffed into the three openings that divided the 'underground' from the farm scene. They would stop the sand from filtering through the holes like an hourglass while I filled it from the bottom. The only disparity from the directions was that I had two bags of sand instead of one. The original bag already had the tear in one corner, which facilitated the pouring of its contents directly into the Ant Farm. Opening the top of the Zip-lock bag would make much too big of a space to pour the sand into the small opening, so I followed the directions and snipped a corner off the bag and began to pour. About half of the sand from the bag flowed easily into the Ant Farm, but that odd, oversized grain of sand– I had forgotten all about it– wouldn't fit through the tiny hole. Not only that, but it prevented the flow of sand coming down behind it, and the sand started spilling over the sides and onto the newspaper.

Grumbling to myself about how nothing seemed to be going my way so far this summer, I moved the farm off to the side. Picking up the top sheet of newspaper by the edges, I carefully funneled the errant sand into the farm. The funky blue-and white rock– it was much too big to be considered sand– was still poised in the sand hole. I considered simply throwing it in the trash, but what if it was supposed to be in the sand for some reason? I read over the entire sheet of directions twice but there was no mention of it. I picked up the blue-splotched orb and was surprised to find that it was warm! I also immediately felt a sense of calm, with my recent frustrations all seeming to fade. Along with the sudden calm, I felt a distinct desire to have the rock in the ant farm. I was pondering how with increasing urgency when I noticed the ports on the side brackets of the farm. It seemed that with the covers off the ports, a plastic tube could be fitted on that would connect multiple ant farms together in a chain. I was now breathing heavily, and began to sweat with the irrational NEED to make things right. My hands shaking, I quickly unscrewed one of the ports. I tilted the farm to the side so no sand spilled out, then dropped the rock in and replaced the port. The moment I set the farm back onto my desk the panicky urgency immediately ended. I should have been perplexed or even frightened about what had just happened. Instead, I calmly went about following the rest of the directions.

The completion of the preparation and assembly were uneventful. I turned the farm to its upright position, moving the base from the top and replaced it on the bottom. Then I used the thin wooden dowel to push the cotton out of the three passageways and create "starter" tunnels about halfway down into the sand. According to the directions, this would encourage the ants to start digging– I thought to myself, "What else would they do?" Finally I poured in 6 ounces of water and waited a few moments for it to evenly soak the sand.

Now it was time to get the ants into the farm. According to the directions, the mail-order ants would come in a plastic tube that would fit into the top hole and transfer the ants without letting them escape. I had no such thing handy, but I suddenly remembered a magic trick I had seen on TV where the magician rolled up a newspaper into a funnel and used it to pour a pitcher of milk into his hand. Magic tricks aside, I figured that I could make a similar funnel with a piece of my newspaper and use that to transfer the ants.

With my impromptu funnel in one hand, I used the other to unscrew the lid and pick up the jar. I quickly upended the jar over the funnel, hoping that none of the ants would try to climb up and out of the funnel– I had no free hands with which to recapture any that escaped. I needn't have worried, for the ants dutifully marched right down the newspaper funnel and into the farm. They immediately began to scurry around and explore their new home, and within moments a few had started digging in the left starter tunnel, heading under the "barn" ornament in the general direction of the connection port where I had stashed the blue and white rock.

The two-ounce bag of ant food was supposedly a year's supply, so I only dropped in a few crumbs and closed the bag. I then placed the lid over the top hole of the farm, effectively sealing the ants into their new home. Satisfied with the placement of the lid, I rolled up the newspapers, tossed them in the garbage and rearranged my desktop with the ant farm as the centerpiece. I was settling into my desk chair to watch the new denizens of "The Farm," as I was beginning to think of it, when the phone rang.

A moment later Mom yelled up from downstairs that the call was for me.

"Sorry, gang," I addressed my new roommates, "My public awaits." I flashed a peace sign in the general direction of my desk as I hurried out the door and downstairs to take the call.

"Yahoo! It's summer vacation, baby!" It was Brett, one of my close friends and study partners who lived a couple blocks away. "Let's go ride bikes and see what kind of trouble we can get into!"

That comment got a chuckle out of me. The most trouble any of my group of friends got into was having overdue library books!

"Where to?" I glanced at the clock on the stove. It was still only just past two. "I will have to be back for dinner by six."

We spent a few more minutes dickering over where to go and who else to invite, then hung up.