A Pile of What?

I love my best friend, Allison, for lots of reasons; not the least of which is that she says things like: “Let’s do tea” and “Is that a pile of glistening ants?” Now, I am sure that there are plenty of best friends who say, “Let’s do tea.” Excepting they don’t like tea, of course. But I challenge anyone to recall a time when any one they know has said, “Is that a pile of glistening ants?”

Having had our tea, my girlfriend and I charged my husband with the care of the children in order to take a turn around the beautiful city cemetery whose entrance lies but a few blocks from my home. The cemetery is old; it spans numerous city blocks and boasts old trees and winding paths.

It is a good place to thrash out such things as the remedy for world hunger, the cure for cancer, and how to bring about world peace, although we generally content ourselves with finding a remedy for the price of ground beef, the cure for the common husband, and how to bring about peace in our own homes. That sort of thing.

We took a couple of turns round, paused to watch a herd of deer consuming some of the foliage, and determined that it was time to proceed homeward. As we stepped upon the curb of the last block before home, my darling friend happened to look down upon what, at first glance, appeared to her to be a heap of shimmering ants.

I have never before heard the adjective “glistening” applied to ants, or any other type of insect for that matter. Sometimes when I hear adjectives and pronouns mixed in unexpected ways it makes me giggle. On this particular day I began to giggle rather uncontrollably while I staggered about on the sidewalk. I was much too giddy to inspect this phenomenon, what with the tears from my laughter obscuring my vision. It’s a lucky thing that I didn’t fall over.

Unsure of what would cause a group of insects to glisten, other than a tough aerobic workout or communal shower, my friend took a closer look. It would seem that what she had first thought to be a pile o’ ants was, in actuality, simply a child’s hair tie. And that is why I love her so much. I’m quite sure that I don’t know anyone else who would mistake an every day object for something completely outlandish like a pile of glistening ants.