Something about ants that you might not know is that you can go from not having any ants on you to having a lot of ants on you in two or three seconds. What I'm saying is that ants can teleport themselves from their hole into your clothes, and you probably didn't know that. But don't feel bad; I know a lot of things other people don't know, like Lonnie Anderson's birthday.
In the above picture, taken in Tikal, Guatemala, Shannon is innocently leading three of our kids from one set of ruins to the next while I do my job of photographing their lives from a safe distance (Violet, off to the left, is about to stumble into a patch of really, really clingy vegetation that stuck to her hair and socks and sleeves and made her cry). What Shannon and the kids don't know in this picture is that they are less than 10 seconds from being covered in really big ants, because they were about to walk into an ant colony. I don't have any pictures of them screaming and flailing and wailing because, instead of shooting closeups of their fear-creased faces, I thought I probably better put down the camera and help out (this is why I am not a very good photographer, but I'm sometimes a decent dad).
I have to admit, I felt pretty smug about having deftly avoided the ant hole. I think I may have told Shannon as much, something like, "You know, with this zoom lens I can see all the stuff you can see without walking over ant holes," and I think Shannon didn't think that was funny.
I had my own run-in with ants later that night, as we strolled back toward the car after sightseeing. I felt a sharp pinch where the tongue of my shoe meets my flesh, and I thought, "Either I have a pokey seed in my shoe or a big ant is munching on me." I forced myself to remain calm (because even though I am brave and manly I am afraid of huge ants) while I shone my flashlight on my foot. Sure enough, a big, black ant had its pincers in my flesh. But when I tried to brush it off, it crawled up the inside of my pant leg. It required considerably more will power to remain calm at the thought of a gigantic ant scurrying up my leg. Nevertheless, I think I reasonably succeeded at taking my pants off in public in a calm and composed manner. Actually now that I think about it, this may have actually freaked out passerby more -- would you probably be more unnerved by a man casually and deliberatelly removing his trousers in a national park than by a man shrieking and slapping his legs and crotch while ripping off his pants in the same location?
You know, both scenarios are equally troubling. If forced to witness one of the two, I would request anesthesia. But don't get all uppity on me. I will tell you what, if you had watched that ant crawl into your pants, you would've shown the world* your undies just as fast I did.
* And by "the world" I mean not really anybody, because it was really dark and I don't think there was anyone else in the park -- but if I had mentioned that fact up front you would've stopped reading. See? I know all about journalistic conventions of stretching the truth to draw in readership. The only difference is that I eventually level with you because we're friends, while the media doesn't love you at all. Except Oprah. She probably likes you.