Unappreciative Insects

 It seems to me that ants have gotten very particular these days about what they are willing to eat. They must have sweets, and even then only the sweetest of sweets. Just yesterday I watched an entire hoard go around a bit of chocolate brownie to satisfy a preference for a nearby bit that included in addition to the cake itself a little piece of a chocolate chip. It seems that beggars after all can be choosers. Spoiled by abundance, if you ask me. Not an ounce of thriftiness in their tiny bones. I remember a time long ago when my brother and I had poured some dried macaroni noodles into a pan of water, thinking to make our lunch, for our household had no chocolate chip brownies just lying about, only to find that the noodles were aswim with tiny ants (which we took at first to be flecks of pepper). The point is that ants had some personal integrity back then. They made use of the things that were available, and did not think themselves too precious for a meal of mere noodles. Ants, like people, were frugal, industrious, thankful. Of course they would not turn their backs on cake, nor, however, would they abstain from all else in favor of cake. And yet, I have now an open box of noodles on my kitchen shelf which has proven to be in no danger whatsoever of being raided. It could sit for another year without being touched by a single ant toe—Ah but let a bit of beef fall on the counter, or a dab of jelly, and the pampered little pests rush in like thankless, unruly children, knowing only instant gratification. It seems to me a measure of how very dramatically the world has changed, from top to bottom, from the great to the small.