Why would a fully grown adult male spend money on an ant farm? Maybe I am simply trying to relive my childhood, or maybe some parts of my brain are severely underdeveloped—let’s hope it is the former. Either way, the purchase was made, and the plastic insect prison sat on my desk, completely empty. It needed residents.

It took me nearly a solid week of scouring the greater Atlanta area to find the perfect fire ant colony. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard, but I wasn’t looking for just any run-of-the-mill insects; I needed a robust, thriving society for my new “Antworks” ant farm. I wanted warriors. I wanted architects.

So there I was, 4:00 PM on a beautiful afternoon, standing on the shoulder of Johnson Road. If anyone had driven by, they would have seen a grown man hunched aggressively over a massive dirt mound, intensely poking at it with a stick.

My initial strategy—let’s call it Plan A—was what I considered a stroke of logistical genius. I figured I would just aggravate the pile, let the ants swarm the stick, and then gently tap the stick over the opening of the plastic enclosure.

“Come to your new plastic work camp, little buggers,” I muttered, shaking the stick.

Plan A was entirely ill-conceived. Fire ants are nothing if not determined escape artists. The second they fell into the enclosure, they just turned right around and marched back out over the plastic rim. I was completely unable to amass a suitable number of insect pets.

I needed a different approach. It was time for Plan B: The Shock and Awe method.

Using my trusty stick, I vigorously stirred the ant pile into an absolute, boiling frenzy. We are talking a chaotic sea of red fury.

Then, in a move of pure brazen confidence, I took the Antworks ant farm and slammed it directly into the center of the chaos.

Success! It worked flawlessly. The farm was instantly inundated with angry ants surging inside to attack the plastic walls. All I needed to do now was slap the ant-proof lid on top, secure my new pets, and head home victorious.

But then I made a fateful, deeply flawed calculation. I decided to pick up the plastic container—which was now literally swarming, inside and out, with furious venomous insects—using my completely unprotected hands.

“Okay, just a quick brush,” I thought to myself. “Just wipe ’em off the sides, pop the lid on, easy.”

Quite a lot was wrong with that assumption. I attempted to quickly brush the ants from the sides of the container before they could latch onto my skin with their tiny, hate-filled jaws. It turns out, most of the ants were significantly faster than my hands.

They swarmed my fingers and instantly went on the offensive.

To make matters infinitely worse, Mother Nature decided to intervene. The few ants that I actually succeeded in frantically dislodging from my hands somehow managed to catch a perfectly timed gust of wind. Instead of falling to the dirt, they paratrooped directly back onto various, highly inconvenient locations across my entire body.

By 4:15 PM, the scene on Johnson Road had escalated drastically. Any passing motorist would have been treated to the majestic sight of me jumping up and down in the dirt, slapping my clothes, and frantically swatting at the angry red ants that were now covering me from head to toe. It was less “nature enthusiast” and more “man on fire.”

Fortunately for me, my childhood was essentially a prolonged series of outdoor traumas. Thanks to the many thousands of ant bites and bee stings I sustained growing up, I’ve been left largely immune to fire ant venom. Aside from a burning sensation and my wounded pride, I was physically okay.

I eventually managed to secure the lid and returned to “Casa de Wes” rubbing some of my more significant battle injuries, but ultimately pleased with the overall success of the mission. The Antworks farm is now populated.

Just a fair warning to anyone planning to stop by the house in the near future: make sure you check out my splindiferous new ant farm, but please, please, please don’t remove the top.

Those ants are tricksy.