dholokov

A co-worker told me a story at lunch today and the allegory of it has stayed with me all afternoon and into the evening. It seems that several months ago she discovered that a mouse had invaded her apartment and had set up a home. She would catch little glimpses of it in a corner before it went scampering off, and mouse droppings would appear in the kitchen.

She thought that she may be able to co-exist with this mouse, as long as it kept to itself and wasn't a disturbance. So she began leaving a very small bowl of oatmeal for it to eat.

The mouse ate the oatmeal, but also got into everything else. Flour, sugar, pasta; the mouse would try anything. It also became more bold. Soon it would run across the floor in broad daylight daylight, in full view. Later, it would merely saunter out towards any available food, without a thought to who or what was watching. It grew to what seemed to be several times its weight, until it was just a fat ball of fur with paws and a plump-cheeked little face peering out.

Of course, my friend decided she had had enough. She removed all of the available food except for a delicious piece of cheese, set in a spring loaded device especially designed for the eradication of mice. Very soon the trap was sprung, severing the mouse's front leg clean off! It must have squeaked in terror and pain.

My friend realized that she could not put an end to the mouse. She took him in hand (with some plastic gloves, of course), took him to a nearby park and let her uninvited, newly-crippled guest out, with a stern warning he was never to come again.

Now I realize that mice are not people, and it is silly to give them anthropomorphic, human characteristics. They are filthy and spread disease. And this mouse behaved deplorably, not being content with an arrangement that many mice would consider a wee slice of heaven - a safe warm den and food supplied to them.

And yet, who among us, when presented with a seemingly endless supply of the thing we want most, would not take as much of it as we could? And even then still try to get more? And what must we think of this mouse, suddenly cast back into a wilderness for which it is no longer suited, obese to the point of not being able to care for himself, and now without even all his limbs?