Sitting on a stone wall outside, I put down a plate that had been holding a sandwich. I went back to reading my book, but when I looked up 5 minutes later, I saw that the plate had about 50 ants on it, gathering the crumbs.
Immediately, I felt a sense of revulsion. I wanted to get rid of the ants, to brush them off the plate as quickly as I could.
Instead of following my initial impulse, I simply left the plate where it was. When I came back 3 hours later, the plate was picked clean, and there were no ants on it at all.
Most ants don’t bite. They don’t carry disease.
Why do ants bother people so much?