What is it that makes it so easy for me to kill flies, and so essential that I help this stray cat with her litter? Cat babies are definitely more adorable than maggots. Maybe I'm just a sucker for cute.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
House Flies and Stray Cats
I just killed a dozen flies. As a generally nonviolent person, the kind who carries spiders out of the house, I try to find more diplomatic ways of getting unwanted guests to leave my home. But I kill flies. Lately, be it weather shifts, global warming, hints of Armageddon, I've been doing a fair share of swatting. They have invaded my home, landed in my son's ranch dressing on his dinner plate, on my daughter's knee, and my maternal instincts have kicked in. A swatter and a hand vac makes me an efficient killing machine.
Speaking of mama instincts, here is the first photo of the brood. Last night it rain and she carried the babies out from under the shrubs and had tucked them on a shelf in our carport. We found them this morning snuggled between potting soil and a bag of lawn fertilizer. They lay so motionless and she clearly couldn't fit in the space with them to nurse or keep them warm, so I thought they might have died. My husband put on his EMT gloves and investigated. They still breathed, so he lifted them up and placed them in a cat carrier I had out-fitted with an old towel and placed by the babies. She's in there nursing them now.
What is it that makes it so easy for me to kill flies, and so essential that I help this stray cat with her litter? Cat babies are definitely more adorable than maggots. Maybe I'm just a sucker for cute.
What is it that makes it so easy for me to kill flies, and so essential that I help this stray cat with her litter? Cat babies are definitely more adorable than maggots. Maybe I'm just a sucker for cute.
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2 comments:
Why do you kill flies and rescue kittens you ask? I feel compelled to weigh in on this mystery because I recently read a book titled, Experiments in Ethics by Kwame Anthony Appiah. I did not find the book as user-friendly as its review in the NYT implied. However, I did glean some intersting data that might cast some light on your murderous behavior towards the flies living in your home. According to the author, our behavior is determined to a surprising extent by the situation. He states that disgust is a powerful trigger for moral condemnation - being grossed out makes us mean. He concludes that we should place less emphasis on "character education" and focus more on trying to establish situations in which people's better selves can flourish. I suppose in your case a "better situation" would be a home with fewer flies.
Sounds like a cool book. Yes, less flies, I am almost there and I do think I'll revert to my more passive self once the flies are all resting in their vacuum cleaner graves.
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