A New Year’s Resolution

I am terrible at New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t like making promises I cannot keep, so this year I will make a resolution so outlandish that when I do end up failing at it, I won’t feel so terrible. I will also create that resolution right now — as I type — in a classic, Faulkner (or Edouard Dujardin / James Joyce for you literary critics out there) stream of consciousness technique. It’s good for the mind.

This year, I resolve to never let the ants get the best of me.

And if those ants do end up growing to superhuman size due to a vapors from Onondaga Lake, I vow to battle said ants with aerosol cans and road flares. If these ants cannot be burned, I will then fashion a gun of sorts out of the follow items: broken glass, PVC pipe, compressed air and rubber balls. I shall impact the glass shards into the rubber balls and fire them at high velocity using the compressed air (similar to a potato cannon).

I will then rummage through the back pack or qualified knap sack of said assassinated ant and attempt to find a map which will lead me back to the queen or the leaders at the base. I plan to weasel my way past the head ant guards by pretending to have a delivery for the leaders. They will question me at first, but will see that I have acquired and am wearing an official FTD Florists shirt and they will ask for no further credentials.

Upon reaching the inner sanctum, I will lay low and attempt to assess which ant is truly in power. Who do the other ants bow to? Who to they show the most respect? That will be my target.

Inside my bouquet, I will have hidden a vial of poison. I see to my left is the kitchen where the Cyber-Ants (yes, they are Cyber now) prepare all their meals. I slide in gracefully and peer over the counter top. In a MacGyver fashion, I throw a knife at the chef Ant’s head and he drops to the ground. I find in front of him the meal which he was preparing for Empanti Ant Quinti (the leader of this rouge, blood thirsty Cyber-Ant tribe).

I pour the poison into his bread because I know that an Ant’s sense of taste is unmatched by other bug and if it is hidden in his Olive Garden-style bread sticks, the garlic will mask the poison.

As Empati Ant Quinti goes over World domination plans with his minions, I will place his meal on the table so when he turns around, he will see it and begin to eat. This works.

He grasps his pincer-like mouth and rythes in agony as he too falls to the ground. His committee surrounds him and start yelling in Cyber-Ant gibberish I cannot begin to understand. As I run for the door, I see a switch on the wall and I pull it. An alarm sounds and the main door begins to close. As I get closer, it gets lower and a Cyber-Ant soldier jumps in front to grab me. As I slide between his legs, I grab a grenade from his belt, pull the pin with my teeth and throw it behind me just as the door closes with me safely on the other side. I dive behind a dumpster as a large explosion destroys the main core and the Cyber-Ants start to malfunction.

Behind the dumpster I find a high-powered Hoverboard from Back to The Future and fly off into the distance. A woman shouts out

“We love you Joshua! You saved us all.”

This year, I resolve to never let the Ants get the best of me.