“March 2, 3, 4

To the very end we will go

March 2, 3,4

You can’t stop us, oh, no, no …”

I ambled along at the end of the ant brigade.  What a lame way to spend an afternoon, I thought. 

March, march, march,  … blech.

My legs were killing me. Dude, how about we take a break? My so-called compatriots, who marched like that was their sole purpose in life, obviously did not share my thoughts. Losers.

I thought back fondly to earlier in the day when I had been chilling out in my space in the anthill, licking on a sugar crystal. Man, that was the way to live. 

But Mama had put an end to it. 

“Tony, you are my oldest child and it’s about time you enlisted in the ant brigade,” she had told me sternly.

“C’mon Mama, let me be. I’m fine the way I am.” 

I hated it when Mama called me Tony. I was “Tony-Tone”. I had a cool name. I had a rep to protect.

“An ant that is lazy? That is not possible,” said Mama.

“Why not, Mama? Maybe some ants are not meant to march around and be busy.”

“Stop that Tony, you are an ant like just the rest of us. We are workers, not slackers. Besides, I need you to be responsible and be a good role model to your brothers and sisters.”

I looked at my brothers and sisters who were fighting over an oatmeal flake. Sheesh! 

“Hey, knock it off you weirdoes,” I yelled.

I was angry. These guys were interrupting the chillness of my life – Tony-Tone’s life. Now, I had to go and be responsible and busy and what not. Man, what a drag.

“March 2, 3, 4

March 2, 3, 4 …”

I was at the end of the marching patrol. It had taken the better part of the morning to march from our anthill in the crawl space, single file beneath the baseboard, to arrive at the kitchen. 

The kitchen tiles felt cool under my legs. Could I just take a break and take a nap in this little hole in the grout? All this work was killing me.

“Company…HALT,” barked the Brigadier, who was at the head of the march.

Whew! Finally. 

Thank you old-timer Brigadier. Time to relax, I thought, as I slouched and sighed.

“Attention in the ranks,” yelled the Brigadier, as Mama gave me a poke with her antennae to stand straight.

“Now, I have good news from our scouts. The cupcake factory has been sighted at six feet north, 15 degrees east.”

“Hoo-rah,” yelled the entire company, except me. 

I did not feel like hoo-rahing. There was more marching coming up. What’s so hoo-rah about that?

“Now, your platoon commanders will give you the routes to the factory. We will take multiple paths to our target.”

“Sir, yes sir,” yelled the ants.

Oh brother!

The Brigadier walked by me.

“New recruit, eh?” he said, sizing me up and down.

“Uh-huh,” I replied, listlessly.

I saw Mama threatening with her antennae again and I quickly pulled myself straight.

“Yes, Brigadier, I think it's about time Ant Tony enlisted,” said Mama with an anxious smile.

“Ah…yes, yes. Now, my boy, since this is your first march, do you know how to handle the enemy?” said the Brigadier.

“Huh – the enemy?”

“The humans,” Mama whispered from behind.

“What about the humans?” I asked nonchalantly, much to the horror of Mama.

“They are the enemy, my boy,” said the Brigadier looking surprised. A recruit who had no idea how to deal with the enemy? What were they teaching in boot camp these days?

“Now, remember, the best way to deal with those humans is to stick together. Stay in the ranks, recruit,” continued the Brigadier, making a mental note to check the recruit training protocols.

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled.

Mama clicked her mandibles at me angrily.

“Yes, sir,” I said with a sigh.

This was really too lame. Stick with the marching platoons? All day?

I needed to split. 

“Platoon 54, fall in,” barked my commander.

I shuffled over in the general direction of the rest of the guys.

“Now, we will climb along the edge of this footstool and get to the edge of the kitchen counter. Now, remember, it is imperative that we stay on the edge of the counter. No breaking ranks and wandering onto the middle of the counter. That could be disastrous.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

Blah, blah, blah!

Platoon 54 arrived at the kitchen counter edge after what seemed like an eternity. I was out of breath. This was too much work. I agree that the cupcake was an interesting target, but … man… was all this effort really worth it?

“Step it up, Tony,” hissed Mama, as she noticed me lagging behind.

“Yeah…yeah, I will. Cut me some slack, will you,” I muttered. 

How could anyone tell Tony-Tone to “step it up?” I had a rep to protect.

“Well, ok, just remember to stay with the group,” said Mama as she marched ahead.

Jeez, Mama, stop being a nag, I thought. 

Just then, my antennae went into a tizzy. I looked around and sniffed.

Whoa, call the marines! What was that heavenly aroma? 

Oh…wait a minute…wait a minute…did I really spy a CHOCOLATE flake? Did no one else see this?

The flake was literally a couple of feet in front of me in the middle of the counter.  It would take just a minute or two to get to it, right? I mean, did it really make sense to march a million miles to the cupcake factory while the chocolate flake stood right here in front of me ready to be picked up? 

The rule of never leaving the ranks be damned. I decided that this was an opportunity that should not be missed.  Damn, dude, Tony-Tone.  You know, sometimes you really need to think out of the box. Imagine if I got the chocolate flake on my own. I would be the stud. I might get a Silver Star from the Brigadier or perhaps my own stash of sugar crystals for my crib in the nest as reward.

I took a deep breath and took a few tentative steps towards the middle of the counter. I looked around. My compound eyes gave me a good surrounding view. Hey, no one was around. 

I took a few more steps. And a few more. Hey, this was rather easy!

The chocolate flake loomed closer and closer as I made my way towards it.  I was almost there. 

Ahh … what a delicious target. My glands watered.

“Tony, Tony, what are you doing?”

I heard Mama’s anxious voice way to my right. 

I was at the flake. I had made it. It was much bigger now that I was right next to it.  But I could handle it on my own. I was a cool dude, right?

“Hey, Mama, look what we have here,” I shouted out.

I could see Mama looking out in consternation. A few of the other platoon members seemed to be calling out to me.

And then, it happened out of the blue.

BAM!

A tent of pitch darkness descended on me with a deafening sound.

“What…huh…huh…hey, what’s this?” I yelled.

I looked around but I could not see anything. It was almost as if I was blindfolded. I felt my way to the edge of the tent and banged on it.

“Hey, let me out,” I shouted.

“Mommy, mommy,” yelled a high-pitched voice outside the tent. “I just trapped an ant under this cup. ”

It was the voice of a human. A HUMAN. The enemy!

I could hear Mama yelling in the distance, “Tony, hang in there. I’m coming.”

My breath came out in short gasps. What was going on?

And then the dark tent started moving. The hard edges of the tent bumped against me forcing me to move along with it. 

“Hey, stop that, you weird human. Or I’m going to get you with my stinger,” I yelled.

The human didn’t care. I continued getting dragged around the counter for what seemed like an eternity.

And then it stopped.

My feet were shaking. My mandibles were chattering. My compound eyes rolled around. I was breathing hard.

I really wished now that I could go back to marching. Breathing hard when no fear was involved was fine by me now. Where was my platoon? Where was Mama?

I clung onto the sides of the tent.  It was a good thing that I did. Because, the tent was getting flipped around. What was this human doing?

“Whoa…whoa,” I yelled, as I felt myself being rotated around. My insides felt like they were getting rocked. I was going to throw up the sugar crystal from this morning if this rocking didn’t stop soon.

I closed my eyes to stop feeling nauseous. When I opened them, the top of the tent had a huge opening. The darkness had been replaced with light.  And, I found myself face to face with this … this … MONSTER.

This monster was so hideous that it took my breath away. It had no antennae on its face and flat eyes that were weirdly set lower in its head. It had mandibles that were pink in color. And the monster was enormous!

And then, to top it all, the monster opened its mandibles and bellowed.

“Mommy, mommy, come and look at this ant that I caught in this cup,” it said.

Once the words had stopped reverberating in the “cup” that apparently I was caught in, the realization sunk in my head. Oh my word, this monster was the HUMAN. And it had a Mommy – like my Mama?

The human was now putting its antennae into the cup.  They were weird antennae – they were thick and fleshy. And strangely enough, even though I clung onto the cup, terrified for my life, the antennae smelt good – like that scrap of chicken that the ant colony had feasted on last month.

I hurriedly put those thoughts aside and focused on the monstrous human.

“C’mon, little ant, climb onto my finger,” said the human, jabbing its antennae into the cup and making me jump around. I was jumping for my life.  I was going to get squished. My fear got the better of me. I turned around and plunged my stinger into the flesh of the human's antennae.

The human gave a blood curdling deafening shriek and the “finger” onto which I was attached started shaking violently. Holy crap, it felt like an earthquake. The tremors flung me off the finger high into the air. 

“Mama, Mama,” I shrieked. I didn’t care about being cool Tony-Tone right now. This was terrifying. I wanted my Mama. I couldn’t fly and after being high up in the air for a while, I was plunging down to earth with terrifying speed.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to die. I was going to die, for sure.  I should have never left the platoon, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …

I landed with a plop onto a soft, squishy white surface that looked like a puffy ball. I stayed still for a while. Was I still alive? And then, strangely enough, my antennae twitched. My glands started watering. It smelled … good? Where was I? I slowly opened my eyes. Was this… was this … had I died and gone to heaven?

Plop…

My compound eyes did a 360. What was that plop? 

Plop…

A white puffy ball like the one that I was laying on fell onto my right. I scrambled to my feet. 

Plop…

Another white ball fell to my left. Where was I?

I looked around for my bearings. It looked like I was in some kind of a big red cave where white puffy balls that smelled out-of-this-world where being tossed in. This had to be heaven, right?

After a couple more plops, it stopped raining white puffy balls. I wandered among the deliciousness, taking a lick here and there. 

Yum, yum, and more yum.

I must have done something good to find a heaven like this, right? I wished I could share my good fortune with Mama and the ant brigade. Wouldn’t my siblings be jealous? A pang of wistfulness struck me.  Would I ever see my family again?

“Tony, Tony, get out of there … get out of there, right now.”

Mama? 

What was she doing here? Was she in heaven too?

“Tony, are you listening? Get out now.”

I looked up and saw Mama on the rim of the cave. 

“Mama? Mama? Oh, I’m so happy to see you. Come on in, Mama. Just take a lick of these delicious …”

“Tony, listen to me for a change. Get out before the human comes back.”

The human?

“C’mon Mama, there are no humans here. Chill, will you?”

“ANT TONY CARPENTER III.”

Mama never called me by my full name unless she was angry. She must be really pissed to be yelling at me like she was now. 

I spoke up in a small voice.

“Mama, don’t you see we are in heaven? You see all these yummy puffy things that were made for us to feast upon in this cave?”

A thought struck me. This really was heaven, right?

Mama’s next sentence answered my question.

“You are not in heaven, you stupid child. You are in a human’s cupcake frosting factory.”

What?

I had heard of the cupcake factory but this cave was the frosting factory? 

“What … what … is the frosting factory?” I asked. A feeling of nervousness was starting deep in my thorax. 

“It’s the cave you’re in – the humans call it a “mixing bowl.” The frosting factory is a weather system that the humans create when they make cupcakes. You see that paddle in the middle of the cave - the humans call the paddle a “spoon”, by the way. The humans turn that paddle round and round and create a tornado with those white puffy balls that you are sitting on.  Those white balls become sticky clouds of frosting. Once the tornado dies down, those frosting clouds gets rained onto cupcakes. The frosting is delicious, no doubt, but I’ve known no ant who’s escaped the lethal frosting factory tornado.”

Talk about being caught in the deathly grasp of deliciousness. 

I was sitting on heavenly smelling and tasting frosting that was going to suck me into a vortex of death.

This was NOT heaven. 

I felt my mandibles start to jitter.

“Mama…Mama…what…what do I do? I’m…I’m scared,” I blurted out. 

“Now, don’t you worry. Mama’s here.  All I want you to do is to stay focused. Get to the paddle in the cave and start climbing it. I’m going to call for some backup. Get moving now, you hear?”

Mama spoke in a hurry while trying to calm me at the same time. My Mama!

I saw her slip away from the rim of the cave.

“Mama, Mama, don’t leave me,” I bleated. I sounded like a baby, not cool Tony-Tone. But hey, when it comes to survival, coolness can take a back seat. My rep be damned.

I scrambled over the mounds of sweetness as I made my way to the paddle. It took a long time. The aroma of the frosting made my glands water but the thought of the tornado gave me motivation to move as fast as my legs could carry me over the sticky frosting. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally reached the paddle.

I gasped as I clung onto the paddle. I was so out of breath. I guess I was not exactly in good shape, huh? I had to lose a few more micro-ounces. 

I looked up as the paddle towered over me. Oh man, I hated these vertical journeys. But it had to be done. But could I take a teeny break? Let's call a time-out, shall we?

“MOMMY…Mommy.”

The ringing words echoed around me. 

 The human.

I snapped back into survival mode.

“Mommy, mommy, look at my finger. Look…look. An ant bit me,” said the voice that I recognized so well. The monster was back.

“Oh, honey. I told you not to mess around with bugs. Now, how about you help me with the frosting,” said another human voice. Man, the tone of that voice sounded weirdly like Mama’s.

But wait a minute, did the human “Mommy” say frosting? The frosting?

The jittering in my mandibles resumed. My breath came out in gasps. The humans were coming to the frosting factory. The tornado would start soon.

My legs switched into gear as I desperately tried to clamber up the paddle. It was not easy. I tried my best to yank my legs out of the sticky sweet frosting  and hoist myself onto the vertical paddle. 

I took one step up and braced myself. Hey, there we go. I took another step up. All right then! 

But I was getting ahead of myself. My legs slipped against the smooth paddle surface and I slipped back onto the frosting.  I had climbed up one step and slipped down three. 

I tried it all over again, several times. No one was going to beat Tony-Tone, right? But I ended up with the same result and slid down the paddle.

Oh no, oh no, this was no use. No use at all. I was going to die. Tony-Tone had been beat.

“Mama… Mama …,” I wailed, as the realization that I could not climb the paddle to freedom struck me. I was going to be permanently stuck in this frosting factory. There was no escape and I would probably be entombed in this delicious, but deadly place.

I should have never left the platoon. 

Ant Tony, you doofus, you should have listened to Mama, I told myself.

The humans began talking again. 

“C’mon honey, do you want to stir the frosting in the bowl?” said the “Mommy” human.

“Sure, Mommy,” said the other human.

“Here, hold onto the spoon,” said the “Mommy” human.

I raised my eyes up at the mouth of the cave hesitantly. I took one look at the two hideous monsters looking down into the cave and shut my eyes and screamed from the bottom of my thorax.

“Mama…Mama… help me … help me …”

“I’m coming, I’m right here, Mama’s here now…” I heard a familiar voice say.

What? Where?

I opened my eyes and saw a wondrous, beautiful sight. 

Holy crap…holy crap, indeed.

The rim of the cave was lined end to end with my fellow ants. There were hundreds and thousands of them – the entire platoon! The rim looked like a swarming, brown circle. The Brigadier himself was directing the platoons 14 and 24 in front line formations. 

“Hang in there, recruit. We take care of our own,” he barked.

I could not think of anything that sounded better. I was overwhelmed.

“Sir … yes, sir,” I said, working through the lump in my throat. The words came out as a squeak.

Platoon 32 was rappelling down the paddle. 

“We got you Tone. Hang in there, man,” they yelled.

A bellowing shriek that echoed all around the cave froze every member of the platoon.

“Mommy, Mommy, there are ants everywhere. What’s going on?” yelled the human. 

“Oh no, oh no, honey, get away from the frosting bowl. Get away right now. We have to call the pest control guy. It’s probably an infestation. Maybe we have to fumigate the house. Let's get to the phone.”

The voices faded away.

The ant platoon looked at each other.

“Hoo-rah,” everyone yelled, me loudest of all.

We had conquered the frosting factory. That’s right!  We had done it. We had defeated the humans and taken over a lifetime’s supply of frosting. It took some time, but while the humans were busy on the phone, each member of the platoon grabbed a piece of the frosting and headed back to the anthill.

“And all this was because I took on the initiative of leaving the platoon, okay? Rules are meant to be broken,” I said, reminiscing, as I chilled out in my familiar spot in the ant nest.  It had been a few weeks since my adventure. An adoring bunch of youngster ants were fascinated with my narration of the event. 

“But, Tone, weren’t you scared?” asked a young lad.

“Call me Tony-Tone, ok dude?” I said, haughtily. Hey, I had a rep to protect.

“Oh, sorry, Tony-Tone … sir.”

“Ah, I wasn’t scared, young man,” I said, patting the young lad. I liked being called ‘sir’. “You can’t let fear of these humans take over your life. We need to be fearless. We are ants. We are the dudes. Now c’mon lets all take a nap. Time to chill. The concept of being busy ants is over rated.”

Ahhh … this was the life, I thought as I settled down in my corner and drifted into a nice dreamless nap. It was good to be Tony-Tone. 

“Company …. Company … human alert, human alert.” 

I woke up from my nap with a start. Was this a dream?

“HUMAN ALERT,” yelled the lookout sentry ants. The ant-hill became a hive of activity.

This was not a dream and this was certainly not a drill. My heart started pounding. 

The humans were back? Wait…what…where…why?

I recalled the monstrosity of the flat-eyed, fleshy mandible creatures staring down at me in the frosting factory cave a few weeks ago. Could they attack my neighborhood? Those monsters could create all kinds of havoc on my fellow ants.

“Fall in. Platoon leaders take charge. Platoon Leader Ant Tony, take charge of the little ones,” commanded the Brigadier.

“Sir, yes sir,” I yelled back, wide-awake. This was not the time for Cool Tony-Tone. I had to take care of my own.

“C’mon young ‘uns. Fall in. This is not a drill. Fall in and stay within the ranks,” I barked.

“But Tone, Tony-Tone, you said … do we really need to stay in the ranks?” whined a couple of the youngsters who were clearly not trained in the ways of being part of a platoon. Sheesh! I was never this bad, was I? What were they doing in boot camp these days?

“This is not the time for idle chatter. I know what I said. Stay within the ranks if you want to say alive. Stand straight, shoulders back and follow Platoon Leader Ant Tony,” I said sternly.

“Sir, yes sir,” piped the young ones.

My platoon marched with the rest of the ant brigade to our safety area in the crawl space. We could always find a way to outwit the humans. We were ants after all.

Ahhh … yes, it was good to be Platoon Leader Ant Tony. Hoo-rah!