Target Ants

I found myself in Target today, first time in a few months. The store had been completely re-arranged since Christmas, in the way stores do without warning. That’s how I passed through lawn and garden—en route elsewhere. I wasn’t really in the market for them, but plenty of lawn and garden items were prominently displayed there, since the dandelion season is on the horizon.

Among the garden statuary, including the usual-suspect frogs and pseudo-barnyard animals, I noticed black metal ants for sale. Not really that big, but big enough to be a nightmare if they came alive—about a foot long and half as high. “Foot-long ants.” Fairly ant-like detailing too, not too cartoonish.

Fun, but not for me. If I had one—or better yet a line of such ants—I would, at some point, run one of them over with my lawn mower. Besides, if I had metal ants in the backyard, I’d want really big ones, man-eater-sized—the sort of ants featured in Them, so big that they’re visible using Google Earth, poised menacingly near the deck, maybe. A conversation-starter during summer barbecue season.