Today is going to be a warm day here in Maine. It’s going to get up to 83 F. A scorcher! (Pronounced “Scotchah”) I went out early to mow part of the lawn before the heat drove me down for the day. I saw a baby grasshopper playing in the grass. Of course I mowed around it for the duration of its mini-vacation. As I traveled forth and back along the grass, in and around the roses bushes and past the perennial flower bed I thought about the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. And thinking about the fable and the attitudes of the main characters of the fable a likely story grew in my brain (which is where all of my stories originate and how they spring forth).
I figure the ant was exasperated by the grasshopper. The grasshopper was living for the moment and the ant was the think-ahead person. In my experience of living in both mind-sets I could imagine the tension in their conversation. So I had a pretend conversation with the baby grasshopper.
“Yo, baby grasshopper, what’cha doin’?”
“Just hopping like my mama taught me. I got five more minutes to practice.”
“Tres cool, dude. Then what?”
“I’m goin to go over by the ant hill next to those ugly roses you got growin’ and piss off that bunch of ants.”
“How you plannin on doin’ that, shorty?”
“Just by hanging out and singing off key songs. That gets their goat pretty good!”
“How so?”
“One thing they can’t stand is seeing someone just fuckin off and having fun. It pisses them right the fuck off.”
“I get it! Hey, just an aside curiosity here. Is that how they got the name ‘Piss Ant’?”
“Prolly. We been callin them that for years. Piss ants. The ‘a’ is lower case.”
“O.K., dude, thanks. Welp, I gotta keep movin. I feel the sweat dripping. Talk to you later.”
“Ciao!”
G. M. Goodwin 6 July 2016
Playing Fair and Being Kind 