Weighing In On Nut Cracking

I’m going to get some flack for this, I know. Maybe even lose the respect of some people I care about… I hope not. I’m just feeling the need to challenge some perspectives here. I know I'm not going to solve anything, either.

There’s been this photo going around with a squirrel that is stuck by his manly parts on a garden decoration with a caption about remembering this little guy if you think you are having a bad day. A friend posted it on his Facebook wall and nearly incited a war.

As a documented and known lover of the species (squirrel and human), I’ve started to feel a little pressure about weighing in on this thing. It seems a somewhat trivial thing to “weigh in on” what with all the heavy crap happening in the Ukraine and the state of the American health care system and global warming and the eighty million other things that are really worthy of consuming my mental and emotional energy.

Maybe I just need something to distract me from the piles of laundry mutating a few feet away from me or the other eighty million chores that never end when you are a mom with teenaged boys. I can own up to that. Totally.

So here you go. My thoughts. (Lucky you)

If you have ever spent time with me, you know that I am a compassionate person. I love people. I love animals. I love it all. (Except spiders, clowns, goats and the color teal. Those things I am NOT compassionate about.) I don’t really LOVE professional sports but hey, I see they have their place. (Maybe I should just say I am lukewarm about them.)

I digress…

I am compassionate. I have always loved animals. Always. I hated Wild Kingdom. I hated that the photographers would just film that poor little warthog or wildebeest being mowed down by the lion as the narrator droned on about life on the savannah of Africa. I would actually cry and get so worked up that I would be upset about it at night at bedtime. I still can’t really watch things like that because I get upset. A few years ago, Lee was watching one of these shows and they showed a giant snake eating a gazelle. It took HOURS for the snake to swallow the thing and all I could think of was, “Seriously? You stood there for hours filming that gazelle being swallowed alive and didn’t do ANYTHING????” It gave me nightmares. I’m not kidding. (I also just pretty much avoid animal movies. Old Yeller traumatized me as a child. The horse movies over the past few years? No.) I cried for hours over a rabbit that was hit by a car in front of me. I nursed dying chicks in high school biology class and refused to participate in the rest of the hormone injection experiment (and got stuck counting fruit flies instead). My kids and I held an injured dove in our backyard until it passed peacefully and we buried it. We nursed an injured hummingbird whom we affectionately named “Mr. Cheepers” and my husband drove him across town to a bird rescue.

I have pets. I have had dogs (love ‘em), cats (not really a fan but it’s a case by case basis), fish (they’re wet and kinda boring), rats (actually really cool), birds (loud and obnoxious), lizards (okay when they aren’t trying to eat your finger off), hamsters (cute but nocturnal), rabbits (cute), etc. I have loved and worried over and cared for each of them with all my heart (even the stupid lizard who hated me and the birds that made me crazy). I grieved over each of their passing. (Except the lizard and the birds. I admit it. But they didn’t die. We found them new homes.)

I also have a strange sense of humor. I am pretty sure I inherited it from my mom. We have this really bad tendency to laugh when people get hurt in unusual circumstances. Not because we don’t feel bad for them or we aren’t concerned for them – trust me, we ARE… but the laughter just kind of bubbles out and there we are, wiping tears from our eyes while we are trying to help the person or patch someone back up. The same humor mechanism that makes America’s Funniest Videos popular, I guess.

I also know that I have a fairly wicked sense of sarcasm that when coupled with a sense of compassion and desire to bring laughter to lighten someone’s burden can be jarring to people who don’t get it. I see someone in pain or hurting and I am compelled to help and often I say something that makes them laugh or lightens the mood. I am not putting people down or being cruel, but often it’s pointing out something ridiculous or making a statement about the obvious that might be right there on the edge of appropriate. But that person who is hurting? They just laughed and for a moment, their heart got lighter. A little bit of light just speared into the darkness around them.

Just to be clear – I DO NOT THINK PAIN IS FUNNY.

I just know that humor often takes the sting out of pain.

Now… back to the inciting photo of the squirrel and his nuts. (The black humor in me is welling up just typing that)

I saw the photo, and I felt for that little guy - as much as a human female probably can. (However, as I live with three male humans and two male canines, it has been made abundantly clear to me that I do NOT have the appropriate sympathy for testicles that I probably should.) I winced and cringed and…

I CRACKED UP LAUGHING.

(I feel like I am confessing to murder here.)

I’m sorry. But dang it… the caption said it all… “The next time you think you are having a bad day, think of this guy.” Seriously… RIGHT???? Which is the point of the post. Would it have been better to have it be a cartoon? Yeah, probably.

IF this was real (not PhotoShop "magic") or IF the little guy was already deceased before he was posed, this becomes a whole other argument. (Exploitation of animals and animal cruelty is not cool.) Unfortunately these days, you just can't take every photo you see at face value.

So assuming that this is one real photo of a real live squirrel who was temporarily and uncomfortably detained by his own actions (right by the bird feeder) I really DO hope that he was okay (the squirrel… the photographer I am not really worried about… maybe the squirrel bit him for trying to capitalize on his misfortune… can’t blame the squirrel for that) and I know that these things (again, if he managed this on his own) just do happen. God has made those little critters pretty resilient. They get into a lot of trouble and generally bounce back without a lot of fuss… one of the reasons they are a major favorite of mine and conversely, the arch enemy of many of my friends. (Again, I am talking about the squirrels, not the photographer… I like them too, but in my experience photographers are a little less resilient than squirrels.)

I do NOT advocate animal torture or exploitation or dog fighting or chicken fighting or anything like that. I think animals - and people, too - need to be respected. I still eat steak. I don’t hunt. I respect that other people out there have the job of processing and handling my meat products for me: aka killing and butchering.

Maybe I am a hypocrite. I can admit that. (if I’m willing to admit that I am a hypocrite, does that still make me a hypocrite? Hmmmm…) But when it comes down to it, I care. I care about that little squirrel and I care about the guy who took the picture (even if he is a big jerk and didn’t get bit) and I care about the people who are upset about the picture and I care about the people who, like me, care about the squirrel, cringed and still thought it was kind of funny.

I care more that this picture may have a polarizing effect on people who really just need to be there for each other. I care that people might be alienated from each other and filled with anger and disgust towards people that they love. That this poor little guy who had the unfortunate luck to get his nuts in a cracker (I’m so sorry… I couldn’t help it…) will wind up driving people apart when he may have just had a few rough moments there and got out of it and scampered away just fine.

He probably got through his rough day.

Are we going to make his rough moment our war? Is it worth it?