{"id":3166,"date":"2012-04-04T21:54:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T01:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/?p=3166"},"modified":"2012-04-04T21:54:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T01:54:41","slug":"is-that-a-giant-ant-farm-or-are-you-just-happy-to-be-on-the-red-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/is-that-a-giant-ant-farm-or-are-you-just-happy-to-be-on-the-red-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Is That a Giant Ant Farm, or Are You Just Happy to be on the Red Line?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was riding the Red Line the other day when this dude got on carrying a <a href=\"http:\/\/unclemilton.com\/ant_farm\/giant_ant_farm\/\">giant ant farm<\/a>. As in, it said &#8220;Giant Ant Farm&#8221; right there on the side of it. Also? It was <em>giant<\/em>. I waited for a stop or two, but then I just couldn&#8217;t help myself. I <em>had<\/em> to know.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/giant_ant_farm_1.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3169\" title=\"giant_ant_farm_1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/giant_ant_farm_1.jpg?resize=300%2C225&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/giant_ant_farm_1.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/giant_ant_farm_1.jpg?resize=150%2C112&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/giant_ant_farm_1.jpg?resize=400%2C300&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/giant_ant_farm_1.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Me<\/strong>: &#8220;Ok, I just have to ask, what&#8217;s up with the ant farm?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dude<\/strong>: &#8220;It&#8217;s for a group project for school. I just met up with my group at a bar to pick it up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me<\/strong>: &#8220;I can&#8217;t say that I know of many group school projects that involve both ant farms and meeting up at bars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It turns out, he&#8217;s getting his Master&#8217;s degree in elementary education. So he and his classmates were observing the ants before doing a lesson on them with the kids. If what I learned between Park Street and Harvard Square is any indication, he&#8217;s going to be a great teacher. \u00a0A few facts about ants:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Most worker ants only live for about 45 days, but a queen can live for something like 30 years.<\/li>\n<li>Like bees, ants all have different jobs.<\/li>\n<li>When ants find something tasty that they want to share with their colony, they leave a scent trail so that the other ants can find their way back to it (I knew that one already).<\/li>\n<li>Ant farms are surprisingly fascinating.<\/li>\n<li>The ant farm people won&#8217;t ship you a queen and all of the ants are the same age. So, one day (about 45 minutes into your class project) your students will show up and all of the ants will be dead. Surprise!<\/li>\n<li>We never really established if the &#8220;No queen for you!&#8221; policy is to protect us all from our would-be ant overlords or if it&#8217;s just a scam to get you to buy more ants after yours all die.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/hailants.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3177\" title=\"hailants\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/hailants.jpg?resize=300%2C225&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/hailants.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/hailants.jpg?resize=150%2C112&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/hailants.jpg?resize=400%2C300&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/hailants.jpg?w=512&amp;ssl=1 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Also, and I feel that this is of crucial importance, my new friend informed me that I was &#8220;so totally&#8221; going to end up in his report on the whole ant farm experience. Which is like 3 whole seconds of fame. I&#8217;m so proud.<\/p>\n<p>After talking with this guy for a while, I came to the realization that he might make a decent boyfriend for a certain friend of mine. But how exactly do you broach a subject like that?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You seem nice and you clearly know a lot about ants, would you like to date my friend?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m married and totally knocked up, but can I get your number? For my friend?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you like ants, you&#8217;ll <em>loooove<\/em> my friend!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I never figured out how to ask him for his number without it coming across all creepy and weird, so I let it be. Because, you know, it&#8217;s decidedly <em>not weird<\/em> to have a lengthy discussion on the Red Line about ants&#8230; but asking for a guy&#8217;s number for a friend would be just too darn much.<\/p>\n<p>And then I met said friend for dinner in Harvard Square. And then I told her the story. And then I felt like a total asshole. Because she totally would have gone out with ant guy. Who probably has a name. And it isn&#8217;t ant guy. But I don&#8217;t know what it is. Because I chickened out and never asked for his number. <em>For my friend<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>(See? Even on my blog it comes across vaguely creepy.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyways, next time I meet a guy on the Red Line who is carrying an ant farm and who seems kindof nice, I&#8217;m totally going to ask him if he wants to date my friend. Also, the Red Line provides waaaaaay better blog fodder than the Orange Line and the Inner Express Bus. Combined.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was riding the Red Line the other day when this dude got on carrying a giant ant farm. As in, it said &#8220;Giant Ant Farm&#8221; right there on the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yggS-P4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3180,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions\/3180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}