I was at a friends place for a couple of weeks this past summer, and it quickly became evident to me that his parents were much more lax on cleaning and such than I had experienced growing up. Be it spider (well, especially spiders), mouse or ant, any creature found within the bounds of my house was subject to immediate termination. When I woke up my first morning there, to commune with the porcelain, I noticed a little guy (an ant) crawling across the floor. My first thought was “oh shit, his mom’s gonna loose it when she sees that” but when I mentioned it to him, he casually responded that she knew about them and wasn’t too concerned. Interesting, I thought.
My second trip to the bathroom brought my friend back to me, this time the little guy was crawling on the wall, ambitious I thought. I eventually named him Lenny, and it became a point of slight excitement in my day to have to go to the bathroom because I knew I’d get to see what Lenny was up to. It eventually got to the point that I was checking for Lenny on the floor when I got out of the shower and such to make sure I wasn’t unexpectedly crushing my new friend, and thankfully through this caution we were able to cohabit this space without incident.
Call me crazy, but I’d have been mildly sad to have gone into the bathroom and found Lenny dead, his little head crushed on the tile. It constantly felt a bit like a joke, like I was on the edge of moral seriousness but not quite there, I think largely because the implications for caring about Lenny in the same way I care about other animals or humans seem to be needing to live some sort of life I can’t even understand.
This doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to treat other insects like Lenny, but it’s just so damn hard. I found a creepy crawler in my own bathroom the other night, and knowing I live with some experienced insect headsmen, thought I should try to help get him to the outside. But after trying to carefully pick him up multiple times, it just wasn’t working, and I eventually had to admit defeat and just pick him up with a little more force. I probably partially crushed the little guy, and also threw him down a story, so what kind of savior am I?
If insects bled, would we even try to wash our red covered bodies anymore, or just accept ourselves as red people?
I was at a friends place for a couple of weeks this past summer, and it quickly became evident to me that his parents were much more lax on cleaning and such than I had experienced growing up. Be it spider (well, especially spiders), mouse or ant, any creature found within the bounds of my house was subject to immediate termination. When I woke up my first morning there, to commune with the porcelain, I noticed a little guy (an ant) crawling across the floor. My first thought was “oh shit, his mom’s gonna loose it when she sees that” but when I mentioned it to him, he casually responded that she knew about them and wasn’t too concerned. Interesting, I thought.
My second trip to the bathroom brought my friend back to me, this time the little guy was crawling on the wall, ambitious I thought. I eventually named him Lenny, and it became a point of slight excitement in my day to have to go to the bathroom because I knew I’d get to see what Lenny was up to. It eventually got to the point that I was checking for Lenny on the floor when I got out of the shower and such to make sure I wasn’t unexpectedly crushing my new friend, and thankfully through this caution we were able to cohabit this space without incident.
Call me crazy, but I’d have been mildly sad to have gone into the bathroom and found Lenny dead, his little head crushed on the tile. It constantly felt a bit like a joke, like I was on the edge of moral seriousness but not quite there, I think largely because the implications for caring about Lenny in the same way I care about other animals or humans seem to be needing to live some sort of life I can’t even understand.
This doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to treat other insects like Lenny, but it’s just so damn hard. I found a creepy crawler in my own bathroom the other night, and knowing I live with some experienced insect headsmen, thought I should try to help get him to the outside. But after trying to carefully pick him up multiple times, it just wasn’t working, and I eventually had to admit defeat and just pick him up with a little more force. I probably partially crushed the little guy, and also threw him down a story, so what kind of savior am I?
If insects bled, would we even try to wash our red covered bodies anymore, or just accept ourselves as red people?