Eaten by ants!

I'm sitting here thinking about my mortality. Having cancer will do that for you.

When I was a kid, nine-years-old or so, a bunch of us kids would get together and talk about stuff that nine-year-olds talk about. I remember one subject stuck in my mind. One of the kids said, "The Indians would take a cowboy, bury him up to his neck in the desert by an ant hill, then pour honey on him and the ants would eat his head!" I also heard various other versions of this tale, taking place in South America, or the Congo. I remember thinking how awful it would be to get eaten alive by ants.

Well, I still think it's pretty awful, although getting eaten by cancer probably ranks a close second.

I found some pictures of guys getting eaten by ants. The two magazine covers are from the great book, Men's Adventure Magazines, published by Taschen Books, and the comic book cover, above, is from Heritage auctions.

Apparently I wasn't the only person who thought that getting eaten by ants was a pretty bad way to go, if the motif has been repeated over the years in various forms of popular culture. We're attracted to things that oddly enough, also repel us.