Yes, this did indeed happen. I was only eight and really didn't know any better.

Since all the fathers in the neighborhood were grumbling about the pesky dandelions, Stephen thought he was going to do everyone a favor by going around with a paper bag and pick all the yellow flowers that I could find. Well, I took a look at the bag and ant's were crawling everywhere on it, had never seen so many ant's, and of course I couldn't take it inside the house because you know what would have happened to me, so I just dumped the bag into the trash can.

I originally wrote this poem in 1982.

This poem will be included in my new upcoming poetry book which at the moment is still untitled.