Monday's Metaphor -- Ready? 1. 2. 3. BITE!

Meet my nemesis the fire ant.  Looks harmless enough, but these little guys pack a powerful punch.  Here in Phoenix, they come out in force this time of year.  Mostly you'll encounter them outside, but sometimes they make house visits.

The other night, I fell asleep at around 8:30 p.m. while putting my youngest to sleep (typical) and woke up around midnight.  I stumbled to my office for a night shift of lawyer-ish work (also typical, unfortunately).  Sitting at my computer, I felt a sharp (and too familiar) sting.  Reacting with all the kung foo-like skills I could muster, I smashed a  fire ant on my right foot, but was bitten in unison by about five of its friends.  Most of the bites were on my toes and feet, but one actually reached my thigh when the message to BITE was broadcast across the ant waves.  I looked down to the floor and found hundreds of the little beasts swarming under my desk.  It's truly a miracle that I only received six bites.  I ran for a can of bug spray and used nearly the whole can to annihilate the whole bunch of them (gentle vegetarian, animal-lover that I am).

The miracle is even more dear because I'm severely allergic to fire ants.  I believe this is due to an unfortunate childhood experience that involved me sitting on a whole colony of fire ants, resulting in "ants in the pants" in the most literal way.  That's the thing about the venom of these things, your reaction gets worse (not better) with each subsequent encounter.  Ask me sometime about the time I was bitten by fire ants ON MY LIP.  The night before an oral argument in court.  I certainly wasn't going for the collagen-lip-injection-gone-awry look, but that's what I got.  And I looked that way in front of a judge on a really important case.  Good times.    

Back to my point.  So here's the amazing thing about these tiny bugs.  If you find yourself in their territory (or they decide to invade your territory), they will climb into your shoes and up your legs as a group.  They then send a signal to inform the entire group when to sting so that they can have the maximum impact possible.  How do they do that?!  I don't know, but I'm struck with how the stings of life often seem to come in unison as well, like a well-timed but cruel group effort of all that is bad in the universe.