"i've got some...... eeeeeeeeeyyyaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!"

Okay... so our son and his family were over this afternoon for dinner. Nothing fancy. Cooked some chicken on the grill, slapped a slice of provolone cheese on top, and served it was pasta and spaghetti sauce. Um-um-good.

Anyhow, after dinner Aaron and I go out for our favorite past-time: throwing rocks in the lake. There's something about making those splashes that's stuck with me ever since I was a kid. Aaron likes it as much as I do. The challenge is, after throwing into the lake all the rocks behind our house for the last 2 1/2 years, the place is pretty picked over. Rocks are now few and far between. Luckily, the phone company was working recently laying FIOS cable, and they turned up a bunch of new rocks. In Aaron's words, "Yippee!"

Being right handed, I pry a large rock out of the loose ground and place it in my left hand, pry out another and place it, too, in my left hand, then finally pry out a smaller one and place it in Aaron's little hand. As I look down on the rock in his hand I see a couple of tiny ants on it, apparently disturbed and disoriented by my foraging, crawling frantically back and forth as the yrealized they were no longer in the safety of their colony. Not knowing how he would react to the little insects so near his hand, I softly whispered in his ear, "Look at your hand, Aaron. A couple of ants were on the rock." He casually blew them off with one big breath, then said with glee, "But look at YOUR hand, grandaddy! You have LOTS of ants!"

I turned to look only to see not only the two rocks, but my hand and my entire arms literally COVERED with swarming ants. AAAARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!! I THREW down the rocks, and began brushing the little beasts off my hand and arm, much to the delight of Aaron who by now was laughing uncontrollably. "Grandaddy, you're SO silly!"

OBVIOUSLY, I wasn't frightened by ants. OBVIOUSLY. I was, however, significantly startled by the sudden and unexpected appearance of the huge number of those rascals, and they liberty they were taking cavorting all over my personal space.

Content now that my arm was once again my own, Aaron and I turned to head back to the house. As the sun began to slip below the horizon and the breeze brought a chill to our faces, I thought back on the lesson I'd learned from the ants: How often are we so focused on the few problems of another that we remain oblivious to the swarm of problems overtaking us.