Ant Candy

Dr. Peds came home from visiting Auntie Amy Texas with presents for everyone.  I’m not sure if it was his idea or the brainchild of Auntie Amy Texas, but Mr. Sneaky Pants received a little box with hard ant candy inside.  It was a large, flat jolly rancher type candy, but embedded inside were real, genuine, dead ants.  Mr. SP was clearly impressed from the start, but after a few minutes he started jumping up and and doing dramatic fist pumps in the air.

“Yes!  I am taking this to school in my lunch box to totally gross out the girls!!!”

I had a bad feeling about this from the start, but the candy really was edible.  Insects are a valid source of protein in other cultures around the world.  There’s nothing wrong, really, with eating ants, right?  So, although we do not usually put candy in lunch boxes, my third grader was so enormously excited about taking the candy to school, that I relented.

The next day at lunch, Mr. Sneaky pants carefully ate his lunch and then nonchalantly pulled out the ant candy for dessert.  All the girls started gagging, and then one pour soul actually threw up, which created quite the commotion, of course.  None of the authority figures in the lunch room figured out that the source of the mayhem was actually a boy with ant candy, because my boy is skilled at flying under the radar in such circumstances.  He had the ant candy concealed in his hand and  packed back away before the vomit was cleaned up, apparently.

After I was done teaching for the day, in the afternoon, I asked, “Well, how did the ant candy go at school?”

“GREAT!  Terrific!  A bunch of people gagged and one girl who is always particular about people eating neatly at the table (NOT something that Mr. SP is well versed in) actually threw up!  No one even knew that the commotion was about the ant candy, and I thought to myself, now this was a successful way to accomplish my goals.”

Oops.  Bad mom.  I didn’t think someone would actually throw up, though.

Mr. Sneaky Pants is still grinning about grossing out is classmates.  I think it is going to be one of those memorable events he won’t forget for a long, long time.