Ants for adoption

You may have guessed. Lately, our kitchen has become a meeting site for those tiny black ants that seem to prefer late summer  weather. Ours love purple onion scraps but also are adventurous eaters who will sample whatever’s within reach — and they have a very long reach.

We squoosh them with our fingers but have begun wondering if they deserve greater respect and  a change of scenery.   We look to you our readers to show your compassion for family expansion by adopting a few or maybe 100. We will deliver them, likely attached to a food bit rather than our arms or knees which they  like to explore.

Pet ants don’t complain, don’t need to be walked, require no wardrobe and are very sociable. But you may prefer not to think of them as pets but rather household staff. They can  carry more than  their own weight and will transport a crumb several times their own across the kitchen. They just need a little compass training, like many household pets.

In making this offer, I’d like to add that they’re very entertaining to watch. There’s one right now  crawling up the unopened box of Hemp Hearts granola, another few participating in an athletic meet-up. Light-footed, when they visit my arms, their exploration is barely perceivable.

They don’t have names, which allows the owners to personally welcome them to the family. Dare I confess that I never got around to naming them because… I can’t tell them apart by looks or personality. Ant One, Ant Two Hundred and Six … a good solution to avoiding favoritism. But maybe if you just adopt a small batch, their personalities will be more distinctive and will lead to more appropriate naming.

Should this offer be of interest I will immediately stop sqooshing their cousins, whether they’re earmarked for new homes or content to stay in their current surroundings.  They’re very compact and will take up little  space in their new homes.  But they are non-returnable so choose carefully. Adoption papers are available.