For a while in college, I lived in a weird, 50’s-era, largely metal dormitory.\u00a0 It probably seemed ultra-modern at the time, but now had a kind of vintage, well-worn look to its metal shelves and cabinets.\u00a0 Also at the time, I was quite fond of Swiss Cheese Crackers (renamed to Nabisco Flavor Originals Swiss Cheese Baked Snack Crackers, and apparently discontinued, which is really too bad, they tasted great.)\u00a0 I bought a box with what little money I had, ate a few, and put them on the shelf next to the bed.<\/p>\n
I had the afternoon off in my class schedule, so I took a nap in the afternoon to make up for working on a class project late the night before.\u00a0 It was dark when I woke up, and I didn’t know what time it was.\u00a0 I thought my roommate might be home, and since he was a fairly light sleeper, I thought it best not to turn on the light and check.\u00a0 However, I was hungry, so I located the box of crackers, and sat quietly on the bed, eating them.<\/p>\n
I had eaten my way through about half the box when my roommate came home, and turned on the light.\u00a0 I noticed two things immediately:\u00a0 first, it was about dinner time, and therefore it would not be uncivilized for me to get up and go get something better for dinner.\u00a0 Second, as I lifted another cracker from the box, I noticed that it was crawling<\/em> with tiny red ants.<\/p>\n In fact, they were so covered with the little ants, the crackers looked more dark red than their customary yellowish-orange, and appeared to gently undulate with the motion of all the ants.\u00a0 I dropped the cracker back in the box, and picked up another.\u00a0 Surely enough, it was covered too, and a peek in the box confirmed that the entire box was full of them.<\/p>\n I took a moment to calculate the odds that the half-box of crackers had been entirely ant-free while I was consuming them, and the act of turning on the light had suddenly winked the ants into existence to neatly coat each cracker and fill the box.<\/p>\n It seemed vanishingly unlikely.\u00a0 I’d been eating crackers and ants for probably half an hour.\u00a0 Did the flavor seem a little off?\u00a0 I hadn’t really noticed.\u00a0 Experimentally, I picked up a cracker dripping with ants as if it had been dipped in ant-colored honey, and popped it in my mouth.<\/p>\n Yep, hardly noticeable.<\/p>\n By now, my roommate was staring at me with a mixture of surprise and mild disgust.\u00a0 “What the hell is wrong <\/em>with you?” he said.<\/p>\n I started to explain about the ants.<\/p>\n “Not that<\/em>,” he said, exasperated.\u00a0 “They have pizza and bacon in the cafeteria, and you’re missing it<\/em>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For a while in college, I lived in a weird, 50’s-era, largely metal dormitory.\u00a0 It probably seemed ultra-modern at the time, but now had a kind of vintage, well-worn look to its metal shelves and cabinets.\u00a0 Also at the time, I was quite fond of Swiss Cheese Crackers (renamed to \u2026 Continue reading