The other day, I saw a lady stationary jogging – in the middle of the street.
Yeah! Just like that – except she was 200 with kyphotic posture and varicose veins.
Perplexed, I halted my own jog – safely off to the side of the road – and watched as she flagged down passing cars, one by one, narrowly missing being hit each time. They’d nod, issue a quizzical look, and drive off. As she made her way toward me, I asked if she was alright. She replied breathlessly that “a snapping turtle was in the middle of the street” and that she didn’t want anyone to run it over. I told her it was nice of her (she seemed like the type of lady who needed a compliment – maybe her willingness to get hit by speeding cars gave me that idea), but to please be safe and enjoy the rest of her run.
Not half an hour later, I passed a turtle shell.
It was so squashed into the road that it looked like part of the asphalt design.
In fact, so many cars had run over it that the guts were no longer even visible.
This little encounter was brought to my mind’s forefront when I heard a recent news story about a woman on a freeway who stopped to save baby ducklings who were sans a mama. (But you’ll agree the mom probably abandoned them intentionally when you hear the problems these little assholes caused.)
So, not only did the lunatic lady stop in the middle of a thoroughfare of whizzing metal weapons conducted by human beings, but she parked in the fast lane on a blind curve. And that’s why a dude riding on his motorcycle with his daughter didn’t see her in time. He crashed into her stopped car and both he and his teenaged daughter died.
And now the chick could be facing life in prison.
The armchair Judge Judies of the internet seem to be split on whether that’s fair. Some say that while she’s an idiot, she doesn’t deserve prison because it wasn’t her intent to hurt anyone. I don’t completely disagree – but I do think one’s idiocy then at least becomes almost like a question of criminal insanity – where people don’t mean to hurt others with the nature of their mental condition, so they face a special kind of repercussion from the courts.
And ride to their special prison on a special short bus.
So I wonder – reflecting on the smooshed tortoise and the lady jogging in the street – had she been hit, who would have died? Her? The drivers swerving off into a tree? And does the turtle die in every scenario anyway? Probably. And just what should be the punishment for one person’s stupidity? Before I get cursed an inconsiderate asshole – I’ll have you know I respect animals so much that I don’t eat them or any of the secretions they squirt out of their holes (a recent, hard-won dietary change I’m sharing as I just now perfunctorily squashed a mosquito with a single clap). That said, acting like you’re Saint Francis and acting like you have actual numbers in your I.Q aren’t mutually exclusive tasks, ya know.
I mean the first dumb thing this duck whispering bish did was decide to stop her car in fast traffic to save ducks that would probably just run away from her and straight into the cars (“Girrrrl, whatchu doin?! You ain’t our momz!”). The second dumb thing she did was to park it where she did – probably without even putting on her hazards for visibility.
(I was torn between meme personalizations. Can we not stop here because it’s crash country? Or quack country? You decide. I’ll wait. Cue Jeopardy music.)
But the stupidest thing she did was admit why she was stopped.
I mean – say you had a breakdown.
Shit, say you had a nervous breakdown.
Anything but fucking ducks.
So, fellow animal lovers who value all life (with the exception of biting insects #sorryboutit), consider everything and use your brains before acting. Whether it’s a duck, turtle, or Batman – analyze all potential Free Willy situations and ask yourself first if you might end up taking one life to save another’s. If the answer is yes, then do nothing.
Unless the life to be eliminated is a spider’s.
Obviously.