I have always been an animal lover. I was even a vegetarian for a few months when I was a teenager. I screwed up my diet when I ordered a veggie hoagie in downtown Cincy and halfway through, realized the sauce contained pepperoni. Who'd have thunk it? So, I'm a carnivore. It's a conscious decision and I do think about it from time to time when I'm enjoying a nice, bloody rare steak. Life is full of contradictions.
When I was a child in elementary school, my teacher passed out an envelope with an adorable little cartoon mouse on it. He was wearing a cap and gown and had a diploma in his hand. "Send a mouse to college!" the words read, large and colorful. Excitedly, I ran home after school, clutching the envelope between my small hands. I rushed in the door, chattering a mile a minute, and handed the envelope to my mother.
"Mama! I need a quarter! I'm going to send a mouse to college!", I gleefully proclaimed.Mom looked at me and her face fell. She picked up the envelope and scanned it.
"Come here, baby,"she said as she sat on the edge of the couch. Then she slowly explained vivisection to me and how my little imaginary mouse buddy wasn't going to go to school to learn, but rather was going to be chopped into bits and used as a learning tool for college students.
"No," I cried,"they wouldn't kill my mouse."
A little piece of my childhood innocence died that day. I became much more cynical of life and less trusting of adults. Even things done with the best intentions can be wrong, I realized. To this very day, I believe what the school system did was wrong. Getting children excited about helping out, convince them that they're doing something good, something for the greater cause, without telling them the consequences of that good act. Don't get me wrong, I don't much cotton to mice being in my house and I have used traps and poisons, but I'm an adult now. It's another conscious decision, like eating meat. A child doesn't have the experience to make that kind of decision. A child doesn't understand. You don't tap children for money to kill animals. Period.
Funny note to add. I told my hubby about "Send a Mouse to College" years later. He was shocked. His school did the same money drive for vivisection.
His response, "Oh my god, I sent about 6 mice to college!"
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My sister just realized this herself and reminded me of that lovely cartooned envelope! WTH Wonder how many I killed:(
I had to explain this to a friend of mine (who is well into her 40's) the other day, we were talking about it and she really thought that the mice were given as gifts to the college students. I know that I killed several,I remember wearing my little mouse pin with pride, thinking that it was really at school. :(
I too remember when I was maybe in 3rd or 4th grade and got the little brochure of a mouse proudly wearing a cap and gown, and holding a diploma.
I was always very skeptical, and never did follow through
I did this too. And the reality hit me when, years later, as a biology student, I received a mouse to experiment on and then kill and dissect. I pled for my mouse's life, because I loved animals...that was the entire reason I'd taken that major. I wish now I'd just absconded with it...after all, what could they have done?
I did this too. And the reality hit me when, years later, as a biology student, I received a mouse to experiment on and then kill and dissect. I pled for my mouse's life, because I loved animals...that was the entire reason I'd taken that major. I wish now I'd just absconded with it...after all, what could they have done?
I did this too. And the reality hit me when, years later, as a biology student, I received a mouse to experiment on and then kill and dissect. I pled for my mouse's life, because I loved animals...that was the entire reason I'd taken that major. I wish now I'd just absconded with it...after all, what could they have done?
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