Bear with me for a
moment here and imagine the following scenario.
Imagine a pesky, loud, smelly animal.
Imagine this is the most annoying animal on Earth and that – for the
sake of argument – it is synonymous with the very definition of nuisance. Let’s call this animal ‘human’ so as to avoid
any confusion as we proceed.
Now,
imagine that this pesky human just wouldn’t stop. Not for a second. It just kept going: building up towering
structures, flattening the ground with concrete, zipping around in metal boxes,
and the whole while doing it all as loudly as possible. There is nothing, nothing I tell you, which makes half as much noise in a life-time
as a human can make in a day.
But
we’re not done yet. No, if that had been
it I might have been able to handle it.
See, I consider myself to be more patient than most maple trees. Admittedly, our particular breed isn’t known
for our calm and collected nature. But I
like to distinguish myself from the rest of my kind so that you will know that
I didn’t come to this through simple annoyance.
This is full-blown, righteously justified, annoyance. It’s a difference of adjectives.
So
here’s the kicker, the clincher, the defining problem. Here I am, kept where I am in the midst of a
mess of human concrete, machines, and noise as a kind of aesthetic touch, and
what happens? Some pesky human, no
bigger to me than a mouse would be to him, comes along and staples something to
my trunk. First off, he had to get it
good and secure and so he made sure to put in six or seven staples. As if one didn’t sting enough. What’s up with that!? If you’re a human hearing this, then imagine
this as if it were happening to you.
Imagine a mouse swaggered up to you while you were standing outside, and
sucking in some lovely March sun, and he placed an advertisement for
such-and-such mouse event at such-and-such mouse establishment on your
leg. Then, before you could do anything
about it, he viciously jabbed a half dozen thumb-tacks into your leg to hold
the advertisement there. I don’t think
I’m being unreasonable in saying that you, like me, would be thoroughly pissed.
What
kind of behaviour is that? What kind of
utter lack of respect and decency. It’s
bad enough that many of my kind have been appropriated for various human uses
(the idea of this thing called ‘paper’ makes me feel like ants are crawling
beneath my bark) but stapling an advertisement to my truck? Come on.
That’s just adding insult to injury.
What
am I driving at here, you might be asking.
Is this just some rant about the audacity of humans? What should I expect, you may be thinking,
they’re human after all! They are synonymous with annoying. They can’t change their nature any more than
I can change mine.
Well,
I reserve the right to be angry about it.
I reserve the right to get mad about it and shout about it and…oh, dang,
hold on. Speak of the devil. It looks like a few humans are coming over
now. Probably going to jab some new
advertisement into my trunk. Once one
appears a dozen more usually follow.
Lambs following the flock.
Wait. Hold on.
What? Um…okay, so, those of you
who have kept with me this whole time.
They’re…these humans, a few of the female kind, just removed the notice
that was stapled to my trunk. They’re
also using something to pull the staples out too. I’m, um, not sure what to…Now they’re sitting
beneath me. Making their noise. But…my trunk does feel a lot better now. I guess this kind of noise…isn’t so bad. Um…
Okay. So, maybe some of them aren’t moving so fast
after all. Maybe some of them are
learning to slow down. Slow down, and
suck in the March sunlight. Maybe we
have more in common than I thought. But
don’t tell anyone I said that. I hear
they’re prone to pride.
