As Life and Luck Would Have It

Alex was having a hard day. He'd spent the better part of it scrounging for any morsel of food out there. His little bag came up empty. Tired, he retreated back to the 'Hill'. He was stopped on the way home by another ant from a neighboring colony.

Alex gave this opposing ant two choices: the hard way or the easy way. Before he could really make his stand, a bird flew in and took out the opposing foe.

Thinking he was so very lucky this day, he turned his back for a moment on the bird. The bird missed catching him in his beak by a half an inch. Maybe, when he tripped and fell on a small cookie crumb, that was just dumb luck. Suddenly, he was surrounded by dozens of pieces of freshly fallen cookies.

Mice were coming out of every crack and crevice and headed his way also. Could his luck now have turned bad on him? Then a sound that no mouse likes to here came echoing up the ally near by. Two cats noticed the frenzy of mice and wanted in on this action. The mice then all scattered, leaving the many crumbs behind. This had to be a major stroke of luck for our ant. Just outside of this new pastry shop, our ant set up housekeeping.

One morning, when our ant arrived early, another insect had arrived earlier, and claimed the ant’s territory. ‘How rude’, thought the ant. It seems a big old spider had spun a web across the bottom of the wall. The spider was not after the crumbs; he wanted our tasty looking Alex.

The spider had been carefully watching the ant’s movements for some time, and decided now was his chance to catch this little ant in his trap. At about the same time, one of our alley cats showed up. The cat in turn had been watching for a meal also. ‘That big old spider would taste mighty fine’, the cat was thinking.

Noticing the cat, the spider drew back and scurried up the wall. The spider thought the cat was the bully, and the ant thought the spider was the culprit. You decide! The cat leaped as high as it could, but the spider was too far ought of reach. The spider decided to stay way up high out of reach of most animals. The word had spread, and most other spiders followed suit and began moving their cobwebs up high. Today you see cobwebs of all designs up in the rafters of barns and ceilings of houses.

When the storeowner saw the web down low, he asked his clerk to use a broom and remove it. They never noticed the web over their heads. It was now business as usual, just in time to watch donut crumbs falling. Call it luck or someone watching out for our little friend. If an ant could smile, our little guy was probably beaming from ear to ear.