This one might be a tough question: What would I do if I were an insect? I imagine a lot of people haven’t even thought about it, and neither had I. It took a bit of time to come up with an insect like myself. How does someone liken themselves to an insect in the first place? After thinking about it, I decided I would probably be an ant. I know this sounds a little weird, but in an odd way, I have a lot in common with an ant… all of which I will cover in the paragraphs to come.

First of all, ants are just kinda cool. They have big, vicious, mandibles which sometimes contain certain chemicals that irritates our skin and body. Okay, maybe that part isn’t like me… But this part is… They build highly intricate colonies commonly known as “ant hills”, and I myself love to build stuff as well. I’m not claustrophobic, and actually like small, dim places. This pretty much sums up an ant hill, and I don’t think i would mind living in one much.

A fun fact that I found intriguing about ants is they learn differently from other insects. Most insects learn via imitation, but ants actually possess the ability to “Tutor” younger and less experienced ants, similar to how I tutor my brothers in our American History course, Paths of Exploration. They can also sense when the student ant needs a break, and slows down to let them catch up. On the other hand, when an ant is speeding up behind the tutor ant, they speeds up as well. They also possess the ability to choose what job they do in the colony, so long as it’s the one they’re best at. If a large group of ants are cut off from a food supply for some amount of time, they will actually stop searching and strictly guard and tend the nest.

Here’s another quick and fun fact.  One ant, known as the Pharaoh Ant, actually makes it’s nest inside of a sheet of paper. Believe it or not, It’s about the size of the head of a pen!

On the scientific side, my taxonomy would be completely different from that of a human. My new taxonomy would be as follows: Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Hymenoptera, and Family Formicidae. All organisms within this taxonomy are classified as ants. This is very different from that of a normal human, which ends up in Family Hominidae.  

Although ants can be very interesting, they’re more often than not, considered pests. This is mostly because of their painful sting, but there are other things about them that are undesirable. Something I suspect almost everyone knows about is that ants are attracted to food. If you have a lot of ants in your area then you’re very familiar with this.  To prevent ants from getting your food, simply put it in a plastic bag when your done with it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this somewhat odd post, and in the process learned a little bit more about ants, how they think, and that in general they’re worth the trouble they sometimes cause.

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Seeing through walls: what a useful skill. There are a million useful things that could come from this trait, from being able to look at your presents before you opened them to security.  So the question becomes, what would you do if you had all seeing eyes and would you use it for good or bad? This whole concept of seeing through walls is a little hard to think about, and there are a ton of ways you could add a twist to the plot.  For instance, what if you didn’t want to see through walls, maybe you wanted to keep something a surprise, how would you do that?  Those are the types of questions that intrigue me.

So the first question I would ask myself would be something along the lines of “Would I use this for good and practical use or for mischievous and bad use?”  It seems to me that mischievous use, such as looking at my gifts early, would ruin the surprise. It seems the same can be said for all uses of that sort. So I would probably use it for something practical and useful. Maybe I could become a plumber, I could easily find any leaks in pipes and patch them without much trouble. Or, maybe I could become an architect, I could see flaws in designs and fix them better than your average person.

Actually, I would probably become a form of security or join an intelligence gathering agency, such as the FBI or CIA.  If I became bank security, for example, I could keep an eye out for suspicious characters, robbers, and more.  I would most certainly become employee of the month in no time.  If I joined an intelligence agency, I could help stop many of the various crimes that could harm people and property.

This special ability could cause problems as well. Maybe I don’t want to see through walls all of the time, maybe I don’t want to spoil a surprise for myself or maybe I would get tired of it and want to take a break. While thinking this over, I came up with a simple design that could allow me to see normally, sometimes. Simply get a pair of decent looking shades, pop out the lens, and replace them with solid, non-transparent lenses.  I would see through the new lens, but since that was acting as a wall, an ordinary wall would not appear transparent. Yes, this whole design is based upon the principle that I can see through only one wall at a time. If that was not the case, I don’t know if it would be possible to see normally.  

I would probably want to live somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere with nice scenery.  It would be creepy seeing people outside of my house, even if they couldn’t see me. Probably some deserted island or long forgotten plain where no one would disturb me. There is one problem with this, and that would be food and supplies.  If you live on a deserted island, I’m pretty sure you won’t find a Wal-Mart or Dollar General down the road.  I’m not sure how I would solve this problem, other than get a taste for fish, and eat fish for the rest of my life.

These are just a few of the many possibilities that I could do if I had the ability to see through walls. Who knows, maybe one day in the future this will become possible.  Maybe we all could actually have all seeing eyes.  I know it sure would make life easier in a lot of areas!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a department store, like Walmart? I have, so I’ve decided to put my thoughts on virtual paper.  What would I do if I somehow got locked in and had to spend a night in Walmart?

Well, first of all I would find the food aisle and set up a feast for myself and any poor soul unlucky enough to be locked in there with me (I’m using my imagination here, there’s some fun stuff to do in a store all alone, but with a few other people, a whole new window of opportunity opens.)  Once we had a sufficient amount of food for dinner, I would begin searching for the ovens and microwaves, the kind that you see chicken and pizza cooking in.  I would expect by the time Walmart closes, the chicken would be cold, so I would have to get them heated up again.  Then me and my comrades would have a feast, and eat until we could eat no more.  

Once I’ve got the necessities out of the way, I would set up camp.  By that, I mean I would find the most luxurious bedding and the ideal spot for them.  I would most likely pitch a tent, and an inflatable bed.  I would place the tent in the TV aisle, where, if I couldn’t get to sleep, I could watch a movie or two instead.  Then the real fun would begin.  

To start off the long night, I would probably have a Nerf war. I would break out the big guns and go hunt down other people with my chain gun, offering them the chance to join me.  But if they refused they would have to be… removed from the game.  You may be wondering, why I was trying to recruit men to join me?  Well, there’s bound to be someone else in the store also doing the same thing.  In the end, both teams would have a huge battle in the center of the store with Nerf guns!

I imagine with all of the other players I could play this for hours, but eventually I think everyone would get tired, and at that point I would probably play board games such as Monopoly and Uno for a few hours more.  I would also spend time learning how to play new games, and even games that I’ve never heard of that I would most likely find.  Once everyone was good and tired, the thing that I’ve wanted to do my whole life would begin: a hide and seek match in Walmart, with the lights out and at night.  This one thing, would make all the trouble of being locked in a store at midnight worth while.

If I was still awake after all this, I would spend a bit of time exploring the back of the store. I would check out all of the stuff like toys, game, movies, and more that weren’t out on the shelves yet.  I might even get a wild hair to raid the candy aisle, or build a huge fort out of various items.  The possibilities are almost limitless.

After all this, I would probably be on the verge of passing out.  So, I would retire to the peaceful boundaries of my tent and possibly read for a bit, but at that hour I wouldn’t remember it anyway.  In the morning, when someone decided to open up and prepare for another day of work, I might just hide away into the back for a few hours and repeat the whole process again.  Maybe, just maybe!