Empathy
June 29th 2011 21:00
Illustration courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
What a wonder is Facebook. Not only do I get updates on my friends, I also get updates on animal cruelty via the RSPCA. After reading a disturbing story about some youths who goaded their dog into killing Earl the cat, it got me thinking about the time I told Fred about the kids who microwaved a cat to death.
“That’s what bothers me,” I said to Fred. “The lack of empathy.”
From the troubled expression on Fred’s face, I could tell he felt the same way.
“But then again, who are we to talk?” asked Fred after his troubled look went away. “What about killing a cockroach? People just kill them, not thinking that the cockroach doesn’t want to die.” As a cleaner/caretaker, Fred was guilty of that sin dozens, maybe hundreds of time.
That got me thinking, which is why I haven’t killed the one cockroach that is in my unit. I’ve been lucky; I would have thought that with my unit being near the garden that I would have a cockroach problem but no. In fact, it’s one of the most cockroach-free units I’ve ever lived in.
Same goes for the daddy long-legs. I remember one day killing a daddy long legs and Brett telling me not to.
“Leave it alone,” said Brett. “They don’t harm anyone.”
If it wasn’t for the fact I was about to have an inspection, I would have followed Brett’s advice.
That leads me to the time I told Karina about the environmentally friendly cockroach trap I had set up in one place I rented. I would leave a tumbler with some Coca Cola on the ground. Attracted by the sugar, the cockroaches would crawl inside and drown. I felt less guilty about their deaths as it was by their own volition.
“I was house sitting for a friend and he had something similar set up in his kitchen,” said Karina. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near it. It was disgusting.”
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