YOU were teetering on the brink of throwing the biggest tantrum you’ve ever had the displeasure of throwing. It was building inside you, ready to bubble out like a pent-up geyser and would have escaped if you had not cast a glance beside you and beheld those two bright, brown eyes looking at you in total innocence.
You were clutching your groin when those eyes distracted you but as you focused on those great big eyes, the reins of restraint took hold and the anger in you fizzled out.
But there was no time to take a deep breadth and relax as you are abruptly reminded again of why you were clutching your groin.
It was a sharp pain, akin to a smoldering sparkle landing on your skin. You were being attacked by something small and sharp.
Your hand disappear down the front of your pants going straight to the focal point of your present woes to rummage determinedly before extracting a rather disheveled and somewhat battered green ant between your fingers. Just one look and you applied the pressure of your fingers and the ant disintegrated.
You heaved a sigh of relief and sweet revenge and glance back down at the kid standing there somewhat perplexed at an almost tense situation.
You felt guilty then. The thought of picking on a totally innocent child to express your anger made the heart grow fonder for the young thing. And for what, a sudden piercing sting in the groin during your afternoon nap? Served you right for napping under the mango tree and it was not as if there was no sign of the pesky little pests around – the mango was full of their nests.
You look up into the tree and your vision goes blurry as if your thoughts were flying through a time warp.
The question popped in the inner recesses of your mind – ever got into an accident, one you know you could have avoided if you had taken a little bit more care?
You’re up in a mango tree and cramming your face full of ripe mangoes.
Why up in the tree, you may ask?
So, you don’t have to have all the kids around you begging for half of what you’re having, right?
Of course, first you had to fight off the tree’s permanent residents but after a while, they steer clear off you and you off them, but occasionally, they’ll let you know who’s boss of the tree with a nip here and there where you least expect it.
But you never ask yourself how on earth they could have got there in the first place, have you? You simply react to the sting because your priority is to make that excruciating nip go away. You resort to a dance very much like what the Yanks call the ‘gotta-go-shuffle’ so in all seriousness, there just isn’t the time amid all that fuss to ponder over the mystery of how the ant got up or down – whichever the case may be – your pants, anyway.
Besides, who in his right mind would stand there pondering the wonders of the universe at a time when the sharp nippers of the ant is sending shards of molten lava through your tenderest of flesh?
Your instant reaction would be to flick it off. But sometimes the effort can be rather problematic if you happen to be wearing jeans or long trousers of all things to wear up a tree.
Imagine the twists and turns you make just in a hope to get the nippers unstuck and then getting your hand down there to pluck the culprit out.
Any observer curious enough to notice from below could swear that you were attempting a rap dance of sorts in a tree. Curiouser still, there was not a note of music anywhere, except the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves of the mango tree.
You’re grabbing a handful of your sore spot and giving it a big squeeze. You heave a sign of relief amid some excruciating grunts but it is the relief that is almost palpable to the point of death.
You’ve dislodged the culprit and now you have the breathing space required to plunge your hand down the front of your trousers and remove the runt.
That may be easier said than done because firstly, you have to locate the runt, you know. In your frenzy to dislodge the culprit, you’ve squeezed a sizeable area of your crotch and if you were successful in squeezing the daylights out of the runt, the culprit could have become a part of you trousers material.
But if you’ve only partially put it out of action, it could have fallen elsewhere, in which case you were bound to be in for another Pearl Harbour (surprise attack).
You succeed, however, of plucking out the pesky critter from your pants and disgustingly flick it away.
Now, it’s back to the purpose of being up in that tree in the first place.
You’ve sighted some ripe bunch beckoning you from the branch ahead of you. You make your way to the fork, stretch yourself until you grab hold of the branch upon which hung are the goodies and pull the branch towards you. With your focus on the fruits, it is too late to see the disturbed nest and the legions of soldier ants on the offensive.
You release the branch instinctively and it bounces back with a twang and whack dislodging hundreds of red ants hell-bent on protecting their nest and territory.
A few land on you and you hurriedly go through the “dance” routine brushing off the obvious ones on various external parts of you body.
As you balance yourself on the fork of the tree to take stock of your situation, the excruciating pains – not one but several in your groin area – signals that the battle is far from over.
You automatically reach for the eye of the storm – the spot where the stings are concentrated. You grab and squeeze, all the while gyrating on an axis in a hope the movements would dislodge the runts if the grab and squeeze strategies had not already merged them with the materials of your clothing.
A few seconds of relative calm followed, giving you the time to rummage, pluck out and flick away.
Feeling satisfied, you climb down the tree and slip when an excruciating pain shoot through your being starting from somewhere in the groin area.
You land on your back without knowing it because your mind is focused on honing in on the pinprick zone and employing all your defences to neutralise it.
The hand moves at its own free will, the fingers locate and pluck out, the mind curious that the object is nothing more than a tiny round object.
Closer observation of the object reveal the source of your agony – the head of a green ant.
The message is conveyed immediately – if you have to pluck some insect out your pants, take a closer look at it before you flick it away. These insects literally use their heads and if you overlook that part of their body, you’re sure to get painfully reminded that the head is as bad as the sting it packs.
And we are reminded of the Wise Counsellor’s words: “It’s not the greatness of our troubles but the littleness of our faith that makes us complain …”

 

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