by Susan Bankston
Like you, I am celebrating the Twinklin’ 20th anniversary of OutSmart magazine.
When the publisher suggested that I might write something involving the number 20, I started pondering. Twenty is a big number. A “Top 10” list is hard enough, but 20? I don’t know 20 of anything.
But after thinking about it for a minute, I had myself one of those light-bulb moments. Twenty isn’t hard to do when you make it easy: Top 20 Ways that Fire Ants Are Better than Republicans.
If you’re from around here, you know fire ants. They are so named because if they bite you, two days later you have a canker on your leg the size of Beaumont that burns like fire.
I have heard that the burn will stop if you dance nekkid in church while the Rotary Club watches. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but…oh hell, it’s not true. I do, indeed, know that for a fact. You’ll thank me one day for telling you that.
Fire ants spread faster than a six-legged jackrabbit and have even been known to bite cute little puppies, grandmothers, and Rainbow Brite. Fire ants are a malicious bunch. I’m pretty sure that in their spare time they are enriching uranium and invading Crimea.
But no matter what, even that grandmother thing, they are not as contemptible as Republicans.
So here goes…
Top 20 Ways that Fire Ants Are Better than Republicans:
1. Fire ants seldom make racist or antigay remarks, but when they do, it never, ever involves misspelled signs.
2. A fire-ant sting hurts women the same exact amount that it hurts men—none of this 82 percent stinging level crap.
3. Most fire ants do not have their own radio talk show.
4. Even fire ants believe in evolution.
5. Among fire ants, “The Queen” is a good thing.
6. Fire ants are happy even if they haven’t starved all the other ants and taken their homes.
7. Fire ants just bite you. They do not bite you and then make you get baptized.
8. Contrary to their name, fire ants do not need to open-carry firearms.
9. Fire ants never claim that rattlesnakes are emboldened by Obama’s weakness.
10. Fire ants do not hold a May runoff election to select their craziest ant in all of the ant kingdom to run for lieutenant governor of Texas.
11. Fire ants don’t seem to care what I do with my uterus.
12. When one fire-ant colony attacks another fire-ant colony, they always double-check the credibility of their evidence, and rarely make the black guy lie to the United Ant Nation about it.
13. Three words: No Rush-ant Limbaugh.
14. Fire ants embrace communal ownership of the means of production and reject the inherent oppression of capitalistic patriarchy. We think.
15. Fire-ant bites go away after a few weeks.
16. Fire ants won’t bite you and then call you a terrorist sympathizer for scratching.
17. There are no fire-ant TV evangelists.
18. There are no $10,000-a-plate fire-ant fundraisers.
19. Fire ants haven’t produced any great thinkers either, but you don’t notice because they can’t write or talk.
20. The one way fire ants are exactly like Republicans: they all think with one tiny little brain.
Susan Bankston lives in Richmond, Texas, where she writes about her hairdresser at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., at juanitajean.com.

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