This was posted by Steve Poge in alt.humor.puns.
A few years ago in my back garden there was this ant hill, where all the wood ants lived. This was right near the gate at the back, and we let them live there, because they weren’t causing any hassle, or eating the foundations or anything like that. Now ,you know how ants have loads of different levels in their colonies for different things like larval nurseries, well these ants were even more civilized; they had sports centers, where ants could work out and play (an)tennas and other games; the ant pile had a cinema, showing such cartoons like “Penelope Pitstop” (remember the Anthill mob?) and also classics like “Them”.
On the bottom floor there was a shopping mall, where the ants could buy all kinds of ant-related products. This particular colony was very commercial, and there were a good number of MerchAnts. My next door neighbor, who is a nuclear chemist, is a very careless man. He is apparently involved in some very well paid top secret experimentation with the government, and he never talks about his work.
One day, as he was coming round the back of his house (he had locked himself out of the front door) he slipped on the wet grass (it always rains here, and he has expensive leather-soled shoes) and dropped his briefcase. Unfortunately he had left his regular briefcase at home that day, so he had had to buy a cheap temporary replacement from the market to take home his experiment. This bad quality replacement flew open as it fell under the gate, and a small lump of polonium (or was it astatine?) fell out.
Anyway, it was something which had a half life long enough to get to the ant hill! It jumped out of the case and out from within its shielding (which he had neglected to check) and lodged in the wood ant pile! He was a bit squeamish, and didn’t really feel like plunging his hand into an active ant colony, so he left it there intending to come back for it later. Being as hopelessly forgetful as he was, he totally forgot about it.
Meanwhile, within the colony things started to change, as the radiation started to mutate the ants’ genetic code. Far from growing enormous and red like in most ant horror movies, the radiation inhibited their growth hormone production, and they lost their pigment producing capabilities. You could see through them!
Suddenly things had to change in the hill: the stairs had to be smaller, and all the equipment had to be shrunk! In the shops all the styles were too large, and the colors all clashed, so they had to make a whole new range of clothing and accessories. They sold off the old stuff under the promotional line of:
“Reduced for Clear Ants.”