Bubba and the Red Ants, by Carl Owen

Recently I went on a trip to North Carolina for a high school reunion and to visit my family. I still have some brothers and sisters living near the place where I grew up, graduated from high school and joined the navy. You’re probably wondering about the title to this story. Well, before I get too deep into the Bubba story, I have to give a little background.

I normally stay with my sister Thelma when I visit. I certainly have an ulterior motive for this. You see my sister Thelma waits on me hand and foot and cuts my toenails and cooks good southern cooking. I average five to eight pounds of weight gain each trip. Well how sad it is that things change. I showed up and had a shock when I found that a big, old dog named Bubba had adopted my sister and she had adopted him. Well sad as it is, Bubba rules the roost at my sister’s place now. She calls him her little baby furry friend (in baby talk) and he kisses her on the cheek. It is really sickening. I was glad that I’d kept the barf bag from the airplane because watching this big ole border collie and my sister together causes you to want to vomit.

Well, to make a long story short, I had been replaced in my sister’s affections by a big ole dog named Bubba. I’m including a picture of this critter so you can see my replacement. My brother Brian was just as shocked as I was to see this big dog in her house of all things. After I told him the whole story he commented rather wryly, “face it, brother, things are going to the dogs”.

Just to give you an example, my sister made a wonderful breakfast for me and we had leftover biscuits. I put the biscuits in a plastic zip bag and intended to use them later with some good homemade jelly. Imagine my surprise when I turned around one day and saw one of the biscuits was missing. I confronted my sister and she looked me right in the eye and told me that Bubba’s friend (a neighbor dog) had dropped by and she’d fed my biscuit to the visiting dog. After another bout with the barf bag I came to the firm realization that Bubba was now the top dog.

This realization was confirmed in many ways during my visit. Just to give you a sadder example: I love grits. One day I got up and my sister asked me what I would like for breakfast. I said I would like eggs, biscuits and grits. She said, “Oh, we don’t have grits.” I said, “Oh yes we do, I saw a whole box of grits in the cupboard.”

Well you’re not going to believe this but I’ll tell it to you anyway. When I opened the cupboard, the grits were gone. I had to sit down in a chair for a moment to get over the shock and surprise. Then I asked my sister ‘what happened to the whole box of grits?’

She looked at me and, in a matter of fact tone, said ‘I fed them to the red ants.’

I had to ask for clarification and she stated that ants were getting into the rows of beans and cabbage in the garden.

Still in a state of shock, I asked her ‘why in the world did you feed my grits to red ants?’

In my mind I’d sunk as low as I could go. First my biscuits go to the dogs, and now even the lowly ants get my grits. I felt abused, distraught, misused, upset, hysterical, mistreated, maligned, discarded, broken-hearted, confused, dismayed, and at my wits end. I stumbled down to the garden in a state of disbelief. Where I saw with my own two eyes, sure enough there were my grits neatly sprinkled alongside the rows of beans and cabbage in the garden. I turned again to my sister and asked, ‘Why in the world would you feed my grits to the red ants?’ She stated that a neighbor lady had told her that to protect her garden vegetables to sprinkle grits alongside each row so the red ants would eat the grits and the grits would expand and cause the red ants to explode. Knowing that no one would believe such a story, I removed my glasses so that I could see again the waste of my grits when just at that moment a red ant exploded in my eye.

OK, so maybe there is some truth to doing away with red ants by giving them grits, I still feel left out in the cold with no biscuits and no grits and my position in the house of my sister taken over by a big ole dog. I intend to seek psychiatric help to overcome these tragic events and I will keep you all posted in a later newsletter update.