dozens of tiny corpses

[baratron]

I was unfeasibly stressed earlier today so I posted something in my deadjournal (!). This seems to have helped, as I am now only stressed about my thesis rather than about other people's stupidity.

I am getting annoyed with small insects committing suicide around my work area. They keep either flying into the lightbulb and frying themselves, or falling into my water glass and drowning. I'm the sort of person who's vegetarian at least in part because I respect all life as sacred, and it's mildly upsetting to have to fish 4 or 5 little corpses out of my water every hour or so. The really upsetting thing is when one of them is still half-alive but too mangled to survive for very long. Yes, I know a small insect has the cognitive power and self-awareness of... oh, I can't think of an example, let's just say "not very much", but it's the principle that counts. If I was a polytheist I'd try to find a god of small insects to pray to each time, but I'm not.

I keep forgetting to wash my octopus. This is not a euphemism. I have a cuddly octopus in my bed at night, and after 16 months of nightly bed duty he's looking a bit grubby, and I need to pop him in a pillowcase and then in the washing machine. The problem is, for him to be washed and dry for bedtime, I need to start the washing as soon as I get up. And I keep forgetting. I have plenty of other animals here who could do the job for a night or two, but they're all different shaped, and I won't be able to sleep as well with someone else. And I need to get quality sleep so I'm awake enough to do brain work when I get up.

Comments

[lindsical.livejournal.com]

i have that problem with the many pillows on my bed... you could always buy another one???

[baratron.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be the same, though. This octy has a personality...

Having said that, I did dream a few weeks ago about washing him - putting him into a blue pillowcase (that I own), and then pulling out a second identical octopus. This was part of a vaguely surreal dream featuring meeping and I at university together again, only at the age we are now, in a beach resort, and studying something really odd. Hrm.

[lindsical.livejournal.com]

what about your ewoks and their hmmm.... what did you call it...
oh hell i cant find it... eeping mebbe? anyways... your favorite one pillow (octopus) isnt the same as another one just laying around.

[redbird]

If you respect the insects' lives as sacred, would it help to think of it in terms of their having chosen when to die?

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I do remember the story of the Buddhist insecticide. You put dishes of bicarbonate of soda around the place. Insects can eat small amounts of it without harm, but if they eat too much, it kills them. The idea is that instead of you killing them by putting down a poison, they kill themselves through their own greed.

I think the problem with these ones is they're dying out of sheer stupidity. I know they don't have much of a brain to start with, but it still seems such a waste for them to die that way. Ah well.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Dose it matter if your octopus is still damp at bed time? Surely that would make it all the more realistic?

As for insects that die it's death is by it's own action and part of the natural order. Indeed it is part of natural selection, evolution, the very driving force of nature it's self. and to that we are also subject so they are no worse off than we are.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

eww. damp cuddlies.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Could you dry the octopus off with a hair dryer or leave it in an airing cupboard to speed it up?