The ants we've murdered

Liam: Tyler, we learned a lot about ants in our interview (with the ant). And so I've been doing some thinking about my own personal interactions with ants in my life. I gotta say I've probably killed a lot of them. I don't feel great about it since in the interview we learned from the ant that generally it's a bit of a drag for the ant community to always be dealing with horrific mass murders. At this point I know that I shouldn't kill them so I only do it in situations where it's clear that it's him or me. But when I little kid I think I probably murdered ants for no good reason at all and gosh I just feel rotten about it. Do you have similar skeletons in your closet?

Tyler: I do Liam, and it looks like they're exoskeletons.

After our interview with an actual ant who can speak English, I was thinking about my career kill record against ants, and I'm batting a thousand. Like I've probably murdered hundreds upon hundreds of ants in my lifetime without even thinking about it. Whether it was pouring boiling water into an ant hill or setting a bowl of them on fire as kid, or setting death traps for them in my home as an adult, I am pretty much the Hitler of the ant kingdom.

It's weird because now that we have heard from an ant, who was definitely not me, I think I feel a bit of ant-hill-boiler's remorse. Was I a total sociopath as a child? It appears so. On the other hand, ants are creepy as shit. You've seen these things - the antennae, the beady eyes, the little legs, their strange butts - god I just want to kill every ant that I see. I'm so conflicted, I can see why Hitler killed himself.

Liam: I'm somewhat reluctant to even talk about the horrible things I did to ants as a child because it makes me sound like I was honing the skill-set and psyche of a serial killer. One thing I'll mention, though, is dripping molten hot candle wax onto ants as they went about their business. This would have a sort of 'Han Solo frozen in carbonite' effect except I'm pretty sure the ants just died immediately.

I can't even imagine how other ants would have handled this news... maybe something like "what the fuck? are you serious? why? WHYYYY?"

And who can blame them. I, like you, have probably killed hundreds if not thousands of ants in my life. But like you said, ants are fucked up. I'm pretty sure that I've heard about armies of ants killing human babies in like Africa or some place like that. Maybe it was lions... no, I think ants. So maybe we're just doing our part?

Tyler: I just searched "can ants kill people" and according to the news site Google, they kill up to 30 humans per year. This is insane! Imagine knowing just one person who was murdered by a herd of ants. It would be so embarassing. "Yo how's your friend Dave doing" ... "Oh yeah Dave, he was killed by an ant army. We didn't even give him a funeral." Think of how selfish you'd have to be to get killed by ants, knowing the humiliation that would consume your friends and family.

Liam I don't think you have to feel bad about what you did to ants as a kid because A) it was the 90s, we were all on meth, and B) we now know they crave the taste of human blood. This is fact now henceforth until we find another ant that talks.

You ever eaten an ant?

Liam: Not on purpose but it's probably happened.

30 people a year. Jesus Christ. That makes ants one of our few natural predators, it seems. But yeah getting killed by ants is sooo embarrassing. How can you let that happen? Up until the very moment of death you've gotta be saying "let's just see where they're going with this" and then you're dead. Seeing an army of ants carrying a severed human head back to their queen has gotta be quite a sight. I assume that's what happens after every kill.

You ever been bitten by one?

Tyler: I don't know but I wouldn't put it past them to have bitten my supple skin. I haven't bitten any of them so that would be wack.

I've been thinking all afternoon now about how much ant murder I have committed and it's weighing on me. Why do we find it so acceptable to kill ants and wear their skin as clothing? Or just kill them and not wear their skin, if that's not your thing? 

Liam: Wait what? Do you wear ant skin?

Tyler: No definitely not. Lol  can you imagine though

Liam: Yeah... right ok good. I don't do that either lol. Btw, are termites ants or what? What about spiders

Tyler: Well shit, I've never thought about that. If spiders are ants then I've killed a whole lot more ants than I thought. We should revisit this at some point.

I want to go back and ask about the wax thing - was that your most creative ant killing? I admitted to dumping boiling water and literal fire on them so I'd like to know what kind of guy I'm dealing with here.

Liam: Yeah I'd say wax for sure was my most creative kill. I mean don't get me wrong I tried fire too. And water. And of course, the magnifying glass (which I always thought was really hard given how ants generally ran away from the light beam in order to not die). I feel like sometimes water didn't even phase ants. If it did rain would be a disaster for them. I guess that's why you used boiling water. That's pretty fucked up and good.

By the way, I just googled "funnest way to kill ants" and apparently it's a common search. Get a load of this video.

This kid is a real psycho.

"no wonder our cavemen ancestors were so smart" hahahaa

Tyler: Hahahahahahaha

Yeah I'd have to wait for a time when my mom wasn't around so I could use the stove and boil the water. Then I'd find an ant hill and pour it down there while screaming something like "I FUCKING HATE ANTS"

Liam: It's funny... I don't remember targeting any other creature the way that you and I seem to have targeted ants. I got stung in the ear by a bee when I was like 8 and it scarred me for life so I don't fuck with bees. But ants just fucking had to die. Good god I hope that ant we interviewed doesn't read this shit. 

Tyler: Part of it is that they don't fly I think. So they're just right THERE, you know? I would love to kill like a thousand flies because I hate them so much but when was the last time you saw two flies? It's always way easier to find a whole bunch of ants and then trick them into crawling into your death camp that you made out of Legos and doused with lighter fluid waiting to be set ablaze.

Liam: Well I think we learned a lot about each other here and very little about ants. And that's what it's all about. We are great.