Ants Love Chicken!

Would you like to know how I discovered this fun factoid?

I was on my way back from the gym. I'd put in a lot of cardio, I was feeling good, but I was also hungry. I stopped at a light, looked to my left, and noticed an El Pollo Loco. Hmmmm...

I scored an eight piece, took it home, stuck it in the fridge and wrote for a while. Two hours later I was running out of steam, and REALLY hungry. I closed up shop, threw in a DVD and ate the hell out of that chicken. Feeling lazy, I left the bones in the box on my kitchen counter. I fell asleep while watching the movie.

I woke up the next morning and found hundreds of tiny, black ants attacking the chicken bones. They'd formed a bucket brigade leading from the chicken, down the side of the counter, all the way along the edge off the wall to my bathroom, where the streamed in and out of a nail-sized hole in the bathroom door frame - the hidden gate to the ant kingdom.

Ants don't really bother me, so I didn't freak out. The box of chicken was still in the Pollo Loco plastic bag. I picked it up by the handles and walked it out to the Dumpster. Chicken all gone. Sure, there were several hundred ants who'd been separated from their brethren, but war is hell. Maybe they can make their way back home a la The Incredible Journey.

Now... most people would sweep away the line of ants or spray them with poison or something. Purely out of curiosity, I decided to leave them alone. I wanted to find out how long it would take for the message to make its way back to Ant Central Command that the chicken had vanished.

The answer: a full day. Ants aren't quite as smart as nature shows make them out to be.

Man... it's always something in my pad. First it was black widows, then it was spindlies, then it was a mice, and now it's ants. I can't wait until I'm able to live in an apartment that doesn't have its own ecosystem. I suppose in one sense it's a reminder that, despite my urban environment, I'm still a part of nature, the circle of life, hakuna matata, all of that. On the other hand, I have no illusions about what would have happened if I'd left the chicken on the counter instead of in the fridge while I wrote. At least the spindlies never tried to eat my dinner.