We’re surrounded by weird shit in our lives, there is no denying that. And if you want to wax philosophical about it, you can pretty make a case for everything in this world being god damned weird.

Bananas (think about them).

Space (how can it be infinite?!).

Sinbad’s career.

A god amongst men

But this isn’t going to be some running piece questioning the universe, no, it’s meant to point out some of the things that stand out as truly weird amongst our societal norms. Things that make me shake my head when I see them, or for the most part with the article, reminisce on them and the strange days they existed in.

So, without wasting any more time, let’s jump right in to the first part of this series.

Ant Farms

You may be thinking to yourself, “OK, that’s weird, but no one ever really buys one of those …” Well, you’re dead wrong Jack, because I had one of these puppies back in the day, and oh lord, what a trip it was.

I can’t remember my exact age, but I do recall getting it for one of my birthdays, because I have a glorious June birthday and I remember sun rays beaming into my room during the summer where this colony prospered in my room.

Ah, yes, the glory days of our youth. For a few months, this farm was the epicenter of my life. Everything revolved around it. Bubble Bobble and TMNT be damned, for I had a living world in my bedroom.

Yes, owning one of these things was strange enough, but my inspiration for this column was where the actual ants for the farm came from.

No, and no. Those are my answers for the two thoughts that probably come to your mind first when guessing where the ants came from. They did not come with the package and I did not go get them myself under some rock in my backyard.

These fuckers came in the mail.

Yes, it’s true, live ants were mailed to me at one point in my life. It may in fact be the highlight of my relation with the U.S. Postal Service, although my longtime subscription to Nintendo Power may beg to differ.

The first issue I received, and the first magazine I had a subscription too. I wore that fucker out, front to back.

But, back to the ants.

Note the message in the red circle

Yes, you take the farm, WE MAIL THE ANTS. And although it took the standard and obnoxious 6-8 weeks to deliver, I remember the day those ants came in the mail very well. They came in this long crack vial looking thing with a message saying that they would be “groggy” for a bit after releasing them into the “farm.”

No shit. These mofos looked like Ripley and the crew in the Alien movies when they get out of hypersleep. I can’t blame them though, they were jam packed like the African slaves were on slave ships (says a lot about human nature, people were packaged like these ants at one time), with virtually no room to move around. Ant cruelty if you will. An ant pod shipped across the country, they should have based either Antz or a Maya the Bee episode on this.

Anyways, the ants stumbled around the top layer of the farm for a bit, not doing much of anything but walking around like a bunch of drunkards.

Imagine this, minus all the tunnels, that is what it looked like at first. Just a bunch of ants walking around a crudely constructed plastic farm.

Nevertheless, my brother and me (we were a lot like the old Nickelodeon show, except we didn’t have a friend named Goo. And the younger brother never took a literal shit on the older brother’s toys. Oh yeah, we weren’t black either) were fascinated by the goings on in this miniature world. Despite the fact that not much was happening in that first day, we were glued to the piece of dirt and ant-filled plastic.

We got our neighbors to recreate this scene from 1990-whatever.

Well, eventually, and by eventually I mean about a week later, the lazy fucking ants finally came to and started to create the as-advertised tunnels and caverns. That’s when shit got really exciting.

The ant farm finally became the so-called “farm” we had envisioned. Of course, we weren’t retards and didn’t think the ants would be riding around in tractors, milking cows and whipping the darker-skinned ants with whips and chains for not pulling their weight in the cotton fields, but we were certainly geared up about what was actually happening.

For a couple of kids who loved bugs and insects so much that one of us actually ate them (guess who) almost everyday, this was as cool as it could get. It isn’t often that your parents let you bring bugs inside your house, but I guess when they are encased in a piece of plastic you can purchase from a store, everything is A-OK.

That is, until the day of infamy rolled around.

No, the dog didn’t slam into the dresser and knock the farm onto the floor, spilling its contents. And no, cousin Oliver didn’t come by and try to pour hot cocoa into the top of the farm … but he came damn close …

Prick

It was Mold.

Yes, it was mold that decimated the fully-functioning ant farm of ours. They talked about this in the manual too, but there was pretty much no way to stop it from happening. If the damned ants didn’t drink their water too fast, the water would sit in the dirt and mold would form.

So, one day I crawled out of my loft bed, rubbed my groggy (what a great word) eyes and looked at a lifeless ant farm. Needless to say, I was devastated. Every single ant but a one or two was motionless, killed by that god damned mold. I felt so bad for the remaining few, I set them free out into the outside world, even with the knowledge that it was like letting a golden retriever out into the wilderness to live with wolves and coyotes. But I felt death via centipede or real “wild” ants was a far better fate than an end courtesy of the green death’s head known as mold.

A specimen of the evil substance

That was the last time I ever had an ant farm in my life, but I hope to purchase one again. Maybe for my future son in 2017, maybe for my girlfriend on our anniversary (hahaha, how great would that be). Either way, a new chapter will begin one day, I guarantee it.

Questions or comments? Anything you would like to see covered in the next installment of “Weird Shit?” E-mail me at BuffaloByrne@gmail.com