Taking Pleasure in Institutional Life by Quirk of Nature
April 9th, 2008 4:49 PM
that seemed pretty sadistic - her beloved pet rat, who she's nursed through cancer, now in the freezer and announced over email?
i went to investigate.
and was surprised to find...
no rat. but some innocent butterflies, frozen and stuff unceremoniously in a box amid some lunch food.
the cruelty.
the rat in the freezer
"You might notice a box in the freezer that has my name on it and do not touch. Well it's my rat. He wasn't doing well and I decided that it was better for him to go than to suffer. (And this time I followed through.) Just so you know, miriam (and truman)"
the freezer
so naturally, i went to investigate. here is the freezer.
surprise!
there was no longer a rat in the freezer! but there was some juice, a lean cuisine, some other frozen lunches, and - the ultimate in sadism - an entire box of frozen butterflies. seriously.
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Totally creepy. Two creepy things back to back like that. Wow.
It's like being told there is a horse's head in your bed, and when you go to check, there isn't, but when you investigate further you discover I little fairy who swoops out and sprinkles magic dust on you which at first just gives you a woozy feeling but then teleports you to another world inhabited only by fairies, and when you arrive they dub you the king of the fairies because of your enourmous size, and not wanting to be rude, you accept their crown and gifts and throne. And you wind up spending the rest of your days ruling over the small island nation of Musumandia. Kinda like that. But not exactly like that.
Is it 1:00 in the morning in America too, Lincoln?
Because that last comment seems to have been derived from sleep deprivation!
it is creepy. but not unusual (or at least not terribly so). if you remember, i work at a natural history museum, so we do see our share of dead animals... just not normally pets in the freezer suddenly replaced by butterflies.
But where's the enjoyment in giving or receiving pain? Looks like someone trying to put an end to their pet's pain.
i think the enjoyment emerges from the specifics of the situation... she didn't just put her pet out of its misery with quiet dignity, then memorialize him. no.
1. we don't know how she killed him. for all i know, freezing might have been the method. that's pretty sadistic.
2. why did she put his body in the freezer? why did she keep it at all? and why the freezer at WORK? with everyone's lunches in it?
3. why send an email to everyone in such a way. it wasn't announcing the sadness of the rat's death, primarily - it was alerting everyone, under the guise of mourning, that she had stuck his body in such a strange place, in rather a triumphant and gleeful way. "look at what i did to my rat!" the fact that 5 minutes later he was already GONE from the freezer further calls into question the purpose of the email.
4. the (alleged) presence of first the rat, then the butterflies in the freezer points a certain reckless and possessive attitude towards life that is indicative of a larger pattern here.
5. i certainly enjoyed the escapade, so that part of the task is taken care of.
or maybe lank has a point.
You know, I once lived with someone who had snakes, and raised mice to feed the snakes. At one point, the snakes weren't hungry, so there was an excess of mice. She decided to euthenize them by putting them into the freezer. It didn't actually work. They escaped, got into the food, and scared the bejeezus out of the next person to open the freezer.
Well if this was a natural history museum then maybe she wanted to disect him. I never get emails this interesting.
In fact the only emails I got today were:
Subject: don't
From: Butcher, Emma
To: Smith, Adam
worry
be happy :]]]]]]]
and
Subject: Exam Clashes
From: Greenall, Kerry
To: Smith, Adam
Hi
Please could you come to see myself or Vera in Office WO10a as soon as possible so that we can discuss your exams with you.
Thanks Kerry
No mention of dead rats, freezers of butterflies.
Someone send me something interesting.
Creepy.