Things I've learned this week

When I was a teacher I used to tell kids that any day that you learn something new is a successful day. (Yeah, it's cheesy... so sue me.) Based upon that standard, I have a very successful couple of hours this week. Here is what I learned:

1. When you are using a gas trimmer in the yard, the line just goes right through fire ant hills, hardly slowing down at all.
   
2. When said line toes through said anthills, it flings fire ants everywhere.
3. Fire ants that have been so flung are stunned. They'll just lay unmoving where they land for a while. (This surprised me somewhat. I wouldn't have thought fire ants had big enough brains to be stunned. I would have thought they'd be limited to "dead" or "not dead.")
4. Fire ants that have been thusly flung and stunned do recover their senses (insomuch as fire ants have senses, anyway) in relatively short order.
5. When these fire ants recover their senses (about 30 seconds later, perhaps?), they are very angry.
6. This point is related to point 2 above - one of the places that these fire ants (who, as we've already established, have been flung, stunned, and incensed) will alight after flying through the air is on the unprotected legs of the trimmer operator foolish enough to wear shorts while working with a gas trimmer in the vicinity of fire ants.
7. Sneakers worn by the trimmer operator, and now swarmed with enraged fire ants, will fly, on average, about 15 feet when thrown after the ants make their presence known.
8. Socks worn under the sneakers will only fly about half the distance the sneakers did. It is unclear how much of this decrease in distance is caused by increased wind resistance for socks, and how much is caused by reduced urgency on the part of the wearer because most of the ants have now been removed.

*sigh*