Raining Rodents
I grew up in rural Upstate New York. Rodents were a common occurrence, be they in the house somewhere, running through the leaves or pushing up mounds of dirt in the middle of your lawn. They were never much of a nuisance, and I got used to them so when I came down to this cluster-fuck of people, concrete and pollution, the rats did not surprise me. The fact that people gathered on train platforms and watched and giggled at the rats playing on the tracks did surprise me.
So when my students were in an uproar about a mouse today, I could not seem to grasp their anxiety. All their lives they’ve seen big nasty rats playing on train tracks and rummaging through their garbage. Why then was a small mouse in the classroom something that put them all in an uproar. I understand that a mouse falling from a crack in the ceiling and landing on your assignment would be a bit frightening - it’d scare the shit out of me real quick for sure - but the students just could not seem to get over it. The best part about it is that the mouse was probably poisoned and tracked poison and nastiness all over my students papers that are now sitting on my table. Fucking awesome little mice.
