calling marlin perkins

It´s my table.


The restaurant is one of my favorites in town -- a true Graham Greene experience. But the table is not the best. It is just mine.


The view is good, but partially obstructed by a pillar.


And the table is too far from any of the fans for heat relief.


But it has something no other table has in the restaurant -- or perhaps in Melaque.


That view-obstructing pillar is a super highway for ants. Not the tiny sugar ants or the giant carpenter ants. Just your average, every-day Argentine ants.


I first noticed them months ago. They appeared to be setting up a new nest somewhere in the rafters. The traffic was sparse -- until the larvae-bearers showed up. Then it was 5 PM in Manhattan -- but the ants were smart enough to unsnarl their own gridlock.


They were soon replaced by the Mayflower Van ants. These girls could lift. They managed to maneuver several large insects and insect parts up the wall. Including a dismembered grasshopper. Finally answering whether the ant ever came to the fabled grasshopper´s aid.


Probably lunch for the new mouths that would be born into adulthood with a full To Do list for the rest of their lives.


There is a reason that Solomon instructed his son to consider the ant. They are steady. Industrious. Committed.


But the reason I tell this tale is to remind myself that I am glad to not be an ant. Too much bustle. Too much worry. Too much inbred busyness.


So, I sit. I drink my mineral water. I write. I think.


And I go home.


Maybe to return to the column of ants at my table in one of my favorites restaurants in Melaque. But maybe not.


I´m not going to worry about it.