“….the ants going marching one by one, the little one stops to suck his thumb, and they all, go, march-ing, down, to the earth, to get out, of the rain, boom, boom, boom …” – the children’s song equivalent to “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”

I never think much about it, but ants are my closest neighbors. It’s funny, but I have a penchant for living in rural areas and the last two places called Scared o’ Bears Ranch had a combined age of more than 200 years. I’m currently hiding out in a place homesteaded at the turn of the 20th century and the little rascals surround me. They march in orderly trails down the eucalyptus trees that shade my sanctuary. They climb up the sides of the house, along the porch and live inside the walls.

Every where I live, these little buggers make a serious assault on our living quarters. A few years back in Iron Canyon, they were everywhere — kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room. I’d be dutifully watching “Law & Order” and periodically, I’d slap my arm, leg or top of the head, swearing as I crushed the granulated sugar out of an unsuspecting life form.

Not very respectful to a critter that has been on this planet for over 100 million years.

I came across one of those gee whiz articles the other day, listing some interesting statistics about the little buggers. According to an Associated Press report: “15 percent of the Earth’s total biomass — the combined weight of all living things — is composed of ants. Another 17 percent is taken up by termites.”

Now I know there are things called algebra but how on earth do you figure how much every living thing weighs and that ants make up 15 percent of that total? Not 14 percent. Not 16. But 15. I find it hard to believe that between ants and termites, they make up 32 percent of the weight of every living thing.

That means that trees, fishes and Frank Ferry comprise the other 68 percent?

There may be as many as 30,000 species of ants. Compare that to only four species of humans — Baptists, non-Baptists, former Baptists and people considering becoming Baptists.

There are an estimated 700 species of ants in Canada and the United States.

The longest living ants are called Wood Queens. We will all take our West Ranch

Beacon equivalent of a commercial break to avert one another’s eyes, purse our lips so we won’t giggle and listen to Muzak while we wait for that obvious gay straight-line to float delicately away in the wind.

Here. I’ll provide the Muzak. “Strangers in the night, exchanging glances, we were strangers in the night, exchanging pantses …”

Thank you. We’re back. Wood Queens — the ants, not the logging boot-wearing androgynous rock group — live to a ripe old age of 20, coincidentally, about the same amount of years as Kurt Cobain.

More fun with ants — they have the largest brain of all insects with a whopping

— ching-ching-ching — 250,000 brain cells. I’m lazy. You make up your own Palmdale or Joe Biden punchline. Humans, well, most humans, have about 10 billion, less if they attended Woodstock.

Here’s one that floored me. Ants can lift up to 20 times their body weight. If I were as strong as an ant, I could bench press 6,000 pounds. Well. Maybe 5,000 pounds. I’ve been sick. But can you imagine being that strong? You could open pickle jars.

Of course, the downside of being that strong is that all your friends would call you to help them move and there goes your weekends. The upside is you could probably end up top dog in any bar fight or little league parental altercation but then the flipside to that is if you lost your temper, you’d end up tearing somebody’s head clean off and going to jail but then the upside to that is you could probably bend the bars of your cell and escape or at least nibble your way out.

If I were as fast as an ant, scientists tell me, I could run as fast as a Thoroughbred race horse, eliminating, in my case, the need to ride a horse. Can you imagine if everyone could run that fast? NFL games would be over in 15 minutes.

I wonder if deep in the bowels of the earth, ants have such things as scientists who distribute awe-inspiring pamphlets about humans who can’t crawl upside down on ceilings or whose Wood Queens live on the outskirts of national parks and wear rouge and high heels in the sanctity of their little lean-to cabins.

John Boston is the preeminent local writer and humorist who has won 118 national writing awards. He is a wonderful human being and it is a privilege to call him a friend. John will continue to live in the Santa Clarita Valley and write about anything and everything. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.