Aphids

"What I want to know, is what we get out of this ... relationship!"

Mica paused for a moment from fondling my bum with his feelers and eyed me woodenly. If you have never been eyed woodenly by an ant, you have never been eyed woodenly.

"Protection, bucko," growled Mica irritably. "Protection. Now, cough it up. Or squeeze it out, rather."

"Look, I'm quite capable of pooping on my own, thank you very much," I protested.

"Well, you aren't showing it," snapped Mica.

"I'm sorry!" I replied, a bit testily. "It's just that all this ... massaging stuff ... well, rubs me the wrong way."

"Well, excuse me, I'm sure," sneered Mica, "but your kind can't manage without us."

"We most certainly can!" I retorted.

"Oh, yeah? You should ask your buddies about that." Mica smirked.

There was a chorus of affirmative harrumphs and semi-coherent acknowledgments from my cospeciesists. "Salt of the earth, ants." "Foundation of society, ahem." "Oh, yes. No aphids without ants, wot."

"Oh, come now!" I scoffed. "We don't need these antennaed bullies to squeeze the poop out of us!"

"Well, uh, that is ..." "Hmph." "Um, speak for yourself." And other similar embarrassed equivocations tripped over each other in the beckoning conversational void.

"Ok, not much support there," I admitted. "But what really galls me is that you live off our substance, while we get nothing in return. What kind of symbiosis is that? You guys don't seem to care if we live or die!'

"Of course, we care," said Mica. "In the aggregate. I don't care if you live or die. Plenty more aphids where you came from. But we need to keep the species going, obviously."

"Hah!" I riposted. "Just wait until we evolve human-sized brains! We won't stand for this kind of crap then!"

Mica shrugged as well as an ant can. "Ah, then," he said, vibrating his antennae meaningfully, "we'll be able to dispense with the protection, too."