In this world, there are two kinds of people:
those who constantly seek to split the world up into two kinds of people, and
those who wish desperately that those people would shut up about their stupid
categories for a bit. And although I have occasionally found myself in that
second group, I recently discovered a new divide along which to separate the
wheat from the slightly different wheat. Hopefully you will come away from this
with a new way of looking at the world around you, and not come away from this
vowing never to visit this website again.
In any house, apartment, or other place of dwelling there are Domestic people,
and there are the Untamed. Reflecting back on my years of living in a college
dormitory, I can see that one of my roommates was the domestic type, while my
other roommate and I were not. To put this into proper perspective, you need to
understand the dynamics of insect removal in our suite, which as a living space
was not nearly so sweet as it was pronounced.
From time to time my roommates and I would be visited by roaches, scurrying
about looking aggressive and unsanitary, like so many six-legged Michael Moores.
On at least two occasions, these hapless visitors realized that our dormitory
was already as dirty and infested as it could possibly be, and therefore their
presence was of little note. Suddenly bereft of any purpose in life, these
roaches kicked over and expired on the floor in plain view.
This brings me to the intricate details of insect removal in our room. On the
first of these occasions, the situation was handled entirely by myself and my
fellow Untamed, who I will refer to, out of respect for his privacy, as James
Doe. The process of insect removal that James and I undertook consisted of
looking at the roach, sprawled there in the middle of the common room floor, and
agreeing to name him Bob. Overtaken in the days that followed by a nagging sense
that something was yet to be done, we taught Bob tricks, as befitting any family
pet. "Bob! Play dead!" we would shout when entering the common room. And good
old Bob always looked very convincing, sometimes going so far as to physically
decay before our very eyes. (Let's see your average cocker spaniel do that!) It
was almost a shame when some one removed him, not to mention a rather assuming
act, because as I recall the person responsible did not actually live in our
room.
But my idea here is not to recommend dead roaches as pets, but to demonstrate
the difference between Domestic people and the Untamed. Therefore I will submit
for your consideration another instance of a dead roach on the floor. This one
had been flattened somewhat before he was found inside the bedroom I shared with
my other roommate. Once again, for purposes of anonymity, I will refer to him
only as Stephen Doe. By observing the difference in the way this situation was
handled, you will better understand the differing mindsets of Domestic and
Untamed people.
Stephen and I took a fresh approach. Observing the two-dimensional condition of
the latest casualty, we decided to name him Daddy Flatty. (You should repeat
this name out loud. It will do wonders for your mood.) We observed further that
this roach was in the neutral zone between my desk and his dresser. We then
concluded unanimously that the other one would have to move it. At that point it
became a battle of wills....a titanic struggle of dead-roach indifference.
About four months later I looked at that spot on
the floor again. Daddy Flatty was gone.
Now, a lot of you are probably thinking there's not much difference in these
stories at all, since none of us ever moved either of the roaches. But there is a subtle distinction to be made here. With Stephen Doe, it was assumed that the roach would
be picked up by someone. In the earlier case with James Doe, no one really cared
whether it was or not. There, dear readers, is the proverbial horse of a
different color who gets the worm turning over a new leaf, but you can't make
him drink. The difference between the Domestic and the Untamed is all in the
attitude. And as you can see, when a Domestic and an Untamed collide, sometimes
it can result in a long-running grudge match that can never truly be resolved.
It's like the couple I used to know who got mad at
each other and gradually began to stop helping around the house: she wouldn't
wash the dishes, so he wouldn't take out the trash, so she wouldn't mop, so he
wouldn't bathe......and so it went. And eventually, both of them came to know
high-ranking officials of the EPA by their first names. One of which,
ironically, was Bob.
So the Moral of the story is this: If you want your voice to be heard by
powerful bureaucratic officials, sometimes the best answer is criminal
negligence and reckless endangerment of the ones you love. And having said that,
I must take my leave. Those funny patches on the carpet have started to move,
and we're betting on which is the first to make it to the kitchen.