There are some feelings I really don’t understand. In one context, I’m left feeling disgusted or perverted. But, in a very similar context, what would otherwise be the same experience leaves me feeling quite different.
Lately, I’ve a had a problem with beetles. Big, black, iridescent ones have been crawling about my apartment lately. They don’t normally bother me. For the most part, they walk in erratic circles on the tiled floor, occasionally bumping into a wall or cabinet. As long as they leave me alone, I’m content to leave them too. There is pesticide about my apartment, so they don’t live long–they might as well enjoy what’s left of their short, buggy lives.
But, sometimes they do bother me. When I say “bother me,” I mean “touch me.” The other day while I was studying at the kitchen table, one of the little buggers bumped up against my bare foot. That was enough. I got a paper towel to “wipe the floor with him,” certainly metaphorically and possibly literally. I folded the paper towel half. From the little guy’s perspective it must have seemed like a gargantuan sheet descending from the sky. But, this sheet is not the restful kind that makes dreams sweet and mornings pleasant. This is a shroud of terror to end the beetle’s existence.
As the double-layer of paper towel is increasingly the only barrier between me and that shiny exoskeleton, I begin to feel a little uncomfortable. As I wrap my fingers around what is surely a beetle in survival mode, the power of my digits seem fatefully weighty. My fingers close tighter and tighter. A whisper of a crunch halts the advance. There, tidily wrapped up for eternal slumber, the dead beetles gets dumped into the garbage can.
This exercise of power over another living thing often causes me a nihilistic fit. Fair or not, right of wrong, I have the ability to destroy another life. My actions will have eternal consequences. This beetle will no longer exist. The disproportionality between the act (squishing) and the consequences (non-existence) usually makes me feel unsettled. Usually. Earlier tonight I had a much difference experience.
My general disdain for all creatures Blattidae has been well documented here in the Xangas. It’s no secret that cockroaches make my blood boil. Simply put, I hate them. They make me angry. When I see one in my home I just. feel. dirty. Like some sort of crack-stitute surviving in a dilapidated structure with no other option but to embrace the surroundings and all the arthropods that come with it. Well, that’s not me. I am no crack-stitute. Accordingly, when I saw an American cockroach crawling with its tiny little hairs-for-feet all up on the mini blinds in my kitchen, something inside me flipped.
I should remind you: where I live, we have several different kinds of cockroaches–two of which can grow to more than three inches or so long. It takes a different kind of energy to battle this kind of tiny monster. They’re more resilient than their smaller counterparts, and they seem faster since their longer legs can cover more ground more quickly. And the bigger ones will fly in desperate–and sometimes successful–attempt to save their lives. Seeing the chaos and flutter on the wings of such a disgusting creature creates a memory not easily forgotten.
So, the stage was set. My American friend covered in his pre-historic armor. I armed with a roll of newspaper. As far as terrain, he clearly had the upper hand: not only was he in a position with lots of nooks and crannies where he could squish and squeeze himself, he was more than 2/3 up the wall. If he took flight, he likely would land outside my reach faster than I could react. So, my first move had to get him to an open space.
The first flick of my roll failed. The roach scrambled behind the mini blind, which I quickly pulled open. The roach was caught off guard and missed his landing. This was his fatal error. He landed on the window sill, before he had a chance to crawl back through whatever crevice whence he came, I flicked him to the kitchen floor.
The first blow from my newspaper merely stunned him. After a period of vibration that lasted no more than a split-second, he suffered the second blow. As I raised the newspaper, I lifted up legs and smears of cream-colored roach guts with it. Most of the body lied on the floor, held there by what was once held inside. The newspaper came down again, again, again. The roach was dead, but I wasn’t satisfied.
Instead of the beetle scenario, the cockroach stirred up a much different set of emotions. I felt the need to kill. Maybe the difference is in a squeeze in contrast to a whack. Maybe it’s about the sense of standoff between man and beast. I don’t know. In the first circumstance I was a little sadder after the ordeal. In the second, I was energized.
Killing an insect should be as mundane as it sounds. But, here, there was more at work. My brain has constructed very different responses to what is essentially the same thing: ending a bug. This baffles me. I wonder how many other feelings my brain-filter distorts?
What about you? Do you ever react in dramatically different ways to essentially the same scenario?
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