I don’t remember what prompted me to say it. It was sometime during my college years, when I was a member of Kappa Psi, the professional pharmacy fraternity. I was with three fraternity brothers, Jim, Tom, and John, and we were talking about someone whose leadership abilities had apparently failed to impress me.
“He couldn’t even lead ants to a picnic.”
The three of them burst out laughing. I hadn’t rehearsed the line or borrowed it from a book, at least not that I can remember. It simply came out, and apparently, it was worth remembering.
Years later, I would hear one of them introduce the expression with, “As Brad would say…” Then came the familiar line about ants and a picnic, followed by laughter. I had unwittingly contributed something to our fraternity’s vocabulary.
I’ve used the expression occasionally throughout my career, usually when someone’s attempts at leadership seemed particularly ineffectual. I never intended it to be cruel. The image’s absurdity amused me. After all, what could be easier than leading ants to a picnic? Set out a few sandwiches, a slice of watermelon, perhaps a piece of cake, and the ants would probably find their way without anyone’s assistance.
Leadership, I’ve come to believe, has less to do with getting individuals to do what you want and more to do with giving them a reason to want to do it. But I wasn’t contemplating the finer points of leadership when I made that remark. I was trying to describe someone’s shortcomings, and an image popped into my head.
I could have said he was an ineffective leader. That would have conveyed my opinion accurately enough, but would anyone have remembered it? Instead, I pictured someone so inept that even ants, naturally drawn to the abundance of food at a picnic, wouldn’t follow him. My fraternity brothers understood immediately.
That’s the beauty of an analogy or metaphor. It can make an abstract idea concrete, giving the listener something to picture and connect with an experience already familiar to them.
During my years as a pharmacist, I learned how valuable that can be. Explaining a complicated medical concept in technical language may demonstrate what you know. Explaining it through a familiar comparison can help someone else understand it. There’s a difference, and sometimes the explanation that stays with us isn’t the most elaborate or technically impressive. It’s the one that gives us a picture we can carry away.
In this case, that picture involved ants, a picnic, and a man who couldn’t persuade one to follow him. But the expression has stayed with me for another reason. I remember the laughter.
Four young men preparing for careers in pharmacy shared a moment none of us could have predicted would become memorable. We couldn’t have known where our careers would take us, what responsibilities we would assume, or how our lives would change. Yet a few words spoken without much thought found a permanent place in our shared history.
I’ve wondered why certain expressions survive when so much else disappears. We forget conversations that seemed terribly important at the time. We lose track of arguments, meetings, and decisions that once occupied our attention. But a spontaneous remark, an unexpected turn of phrase, or a moment of shared laughter can remain remarkably vivid.
Perhaps it’s because those moments belong to more than one individual. The words may originate with one person, but the memory becomes communal. Every repetition renews the connection.
When my fraternity brothers said, “As Brad would say…,” they weren’t simply repeating a joke. They were recalling something we had experienced together. The expression reminds me of those young men, the easy laughter we shared, and the friendships that helped shape the person I became.
I don’t remember who made the remark or the circumstances around it. But I remember the laughter, and perhaps that’s what endures. Not always the words themselves, but the individuals who heard them, understood them, and made them part of a friendship.
There’s one final irony I hadn’t appreciated until recently. I made a joke about someone who couldn’t lead ants to a picnic, and for years afterward, three friends followed my lead.
Not to a picnic, of course. Just to a punch line.
But sometimes that’s enough.
