The Water Cooler Ants Take a Swim

The Water Cooler ants generally spend their time around the Water Cooler- hence their name. They're smart enough to have realized that coffee-sucking, doughnut-eating people dwell over there. These people shed a lot of crumbs as they laugh about sport stats or tell interoffice jokes. The ants wait under the the protection of the cooler, watching. They ignore the rantings of the cranky Noisy Cricket. After the traffic has died down and people have chained themselves to their desk, they strike.

"Hurry!" they squeal, scurrying out onto the tile. "Move Move Move Move Move!"

"Oh for God's sake, it just got quiet," the Noisy Cricket groans. "Do shut up."

Hauling their prized crumbs onto their backs, they take off running towards the counter where the Pools of Coffee sit. The Water Cooler Ants reach the edge of the Water Cooler. The textured plastic walls seem to stretch up forever.

"This gets longer every time we do this," one of the ants grumbled.

"Hopefully the crumbs aren't stale," another ant grumbled. "The cheap crumbs are always stale."

"Keep going!" the leader bellowed. "We're almost there!"

As they made their way up the cooler, the cooler seemed shorter and shorter. Suddenly, one of the ants shouted.

"Look! There's a ocean!"

"An ocean?"

"An ocean!"

"Let's go swimming!"

"We can't go swimming," the leader ant argued. "We have crumbs!"

"We can put the crumbs on the beach," one of the ants said.

"That's not a beach, that's a ledge!" one of the ants shrieked. "A ghastly ledge! We could tumble to our deaths."

"Weeeeee!" yelled one of the ants, jumping in.

"Holy crap, he jumped in!" the leader shouted.

"He jumped in?"

"He jumped in!"

"And it's cooolllddd!" the now shivering ant said as he retreated from the water. "It's bad, it's cold! Cold is bad! Retreat!"

"It's cold! Retreat!" All the ants yelled in unison, scurrying up the side of the water cooler with their crumbs.

"For God sake's, of course it's cold," the Noisy Cricket grumbled. "You're swimming in the run-off from the cold facet. Do you know how many diseases there are in there?"

"Ants can't get diseases," the Water Cooler Ant leader argues.

"Fine," the Noisy Cricket snaps. "When you get a cold and you start sneezing, and blow off your crumbs, don't ask me for help."

The Water Cooler Ants sat quietly, chewing on a few of their crumbs. The ant who went swimming is shivering and huddling up to the others for warmth.

"Should we go swimming later?" one asked.

"No," the leader said. "We must protect our crumbs. It'll be lunchtime soon. We just have a few minutes left."

Suddenly, the door swings open, and people begin coming in.

"The CRUMBS!"

"The CRUMBS!" they all shriek.

Suddenly, swimming is forgotten. All that matters now is protecting the doughnut crumbs.