I actually used this story inside of one of my books. You see, sometimes life stories can be translated into a scene in a book and in this case, I used it as a flash-back scene for Justina in my book “The Archons.” It’s just too good a story to forget about.
    It all started when we visited my aunt and uncle in West Branch, Michigan. They lived really far in the country. Well, West Branch is a tiny town of approximately 2,000 people. According to Wikipedia the population hasn’t change much over the years. My aunt and uncle lived miles from that small town where the dirt road they lived on had only four or five houses for miles.
    They lived on a corner lot in a ranch-style house. We had visited many times, but this was the first time when my cousin had a horse. We arrived late at night, like we usually do, then slept there and got up early in the morning. My cousin, who is a few years older than me, told me we could go out and see her horse since she had to go out and feed him. They had a tiny shed where they kept the feed away from the house.
    This was in the dead of summer time and I was probably somewhere between five and seven years old at the time. Anyway, we went outside and to the shed. She opened the door and we stepped inside. It was dark as night inside that shed because it didn’t have any windows that I remember.
    She was moving something around to get some food or something for the horse when she asked if I felt like my legs were tingling. Now that she mentioned it, I felt something on both legs that felt like electricity buzzing and it was crawling up my legs from the bottom up.
    We looked down but all I could see was darkness. Then I realized that the entire floor was moving like a shimmer.
    My cousin yelled: “Ants!”
    We both ran out of the shed and slapped at our jeans. She ran to the house and went in. Her mother kicked her back out and came out with bug spray. I tried to pull my pant legs up to get the spray on my legs but I remember the jeans were a bit too tight. My cousin was able to get most of the ants out from under her jeans before getting inside to the shower.
    I kept slapping at them, but by now they were into my underwear. Of course the supply of ants crawling up my legs had ended because we were no longer in the barn, but the ones that had gotten on my legs were still crawling all over me.
    Then my mother told me to take off my pants. Oh, I was horrified. I can’t do that!
    We were in the middle of nowhere. My aunt and uncle didn’t even have a neighbor for at least a mile. My cousin had already run inside into the shower, so there was nobody to see me in my underwear. I relented. Mainly because I knew my mom wouldn’t put up with my fussing.
    After we got the ants under control I got my shower and put my clothes back on. I swear I felt ants crawling on my skin for the rest of the day, even though there were none.
    To this day, I’m grateful that they were black ants and not red ones, or this might have been a different kind of story.