Boll weevils, fire ants and such...

My youngest son participated in a 2nd grade class musical last week. The musical was called "BUGZ," thus everyone dressed as some kind of bug, but I'm sure you could have figured that out all on your own.

My son had a speaking part, which thrilled him, and he was assigned the part of the boll weevil. I'd heard of boll weevils before and knew they were mostly a southern kind of critter as they're associated with cotton. Little did I know that boll weevils are positively evil little things. I was enlightened by what Wikipedia had to say...

"The boll weevil has caused an estimated $14 billion loss in yield to the U.S. Cotton industry since it arrived from Mexico in 1892. Programs to eliminate boll weevils have led to its total eradication in several cotton producing states."

Nice, huh?

The costume information that was sent home from school said my boll weevil was to dress in a white T-shirt with cotton balls on it and he was to carry a stick of cotton candy. So... I glued LOTS of cotton balls on a white T-shirt and we made a stick of cotton candy out of printer paper and batting. It was rather cute, if I do say so myself, and of course I do say so myself.

What I don't understand about the costume is the fact that boll weevils don't really look anything like what I just described. They don't LOOK like cotton; they just EAT the cotton. THIS is what they look like...
My son was slightly aggravated before, during and after the performance because several of his classmates kept pulling the cotton balls on his shirt, thus many of them were simply dangling and/or completely pulled off and lying on the stage floor before it was all said and done. He was not even one little bit happy to be losing his cotton balls. And check out the antennae on his head. There's a missing "ball" on the end of one side. There was a definite theme going on here, don't you think?
Now how could those music teachers look at this sweet face and determine he needed to play the part of a nasty little boll weevil? If all boll weevils looked like this one, no one would mind if they ate all the cotton they wanted. And somehow the antennae is right once again. Thank goodness for that!
Of course there is a bug that is meaner and much nastier than the boll weevil and here's what Wikipedia revealed to me about that...

"Entomologists at Texas A&M have pointed to the spread of FIRE ANTS as a factor in the weevil's population decline." Here's what those nasty little varmints look like...
Here's what another website had to say about the aftermath of the sting of a fire ant (also dubbed the "Ant from Hell")...

"The venom burns like a hot match and causes tiny blisters or white pustules that persist for days if left untreated or for weeks if scratched or infected and may leave permanent scars."

I can tell you I'm not at all surprised to find this out as I've lived in Alabama (twice) where those fire ants are plentiful and they are positively HATEFUL, FEROCIOUS, DESPICABLE creatures, and I have the scar from a fire ant sting to prove it!