27 Jul
2004
27 Jul
'04
1:52 p.m.
A few years back when I was a medical student and calling in sick usually
meant failing a rotation, I got a bad case of bronchitis while on the ENT
surgery service and ran a fever of 102 F. Naturally, you have to be
unresponsive and on a ventilator to get off sick (and even then you may
have to make up the work), so I went in anyway after coughing up half a
lung's worth of brownish-red phlegm in the sink (and since I was ill and
fogged on cough medicine, I forgot to wash it down).
That afternoon, I returned to find a trail of ants leading up to the
loogie in the sink, and a ring of dead ants around it who had tried to
eat the ball of sputum, failed, and died.
Ants have been known to go after other bodily fluids as well, with varying
results....