Unkind

Slowly but surely I'm getting back into my old routines.

Regular life. You know. Before Walter went running around having heart attacks and getting triple bypasses and pacemakers and such.

This week, Wednesday through Friday, was our monthly Plant Rescue Week.

AKA *Bulk Day.*

This is when people put out their big debris piles for The Claw to come pick up and cart off to Mt. Trashmore, the landfill.

Hidden in those debris piles are little treasures. Plants and pots that people are throwing away. Poor orphaned things in need of a good home. Usually, this is a happy time for me.

I went through my pain meds too fast this month, getting Walter out the door and back to work. It was way worth it, of course; but it means I'm moving slowly and gently until my refills next Thursday. So I wasn't doing much actual rescuing this week. More like sightseeing, remembering what my town looks like.

I did find one big pile of empty plant pots. I have quite a collection of them already, of every type imaginable. But these were a good size and nicely stacked, so I packed a bunch in a couple of big yard bags and popped them into the car.

Just as I was leaving, the homeowner came outside. He was clearly a bit of local gentry, of the kind gentrifying our little bungalow community. Well-dressed, very well spoken. Did a great job planting a couple thousand bucks' worth of plants in his newly landscaped yard: good taste, too.

But his news wasn't so nice.

He told me, --Be careful, there's a dead possum somewhere in those pots. I'm glad you're taking the pots, don't get me wrong, but we had to kill this possum and I can't quite remember where we put it. It's in a pot somewhere. So be careful.

I'd noticed a faint odor of decomp, but figured it was just trash stuff from the guy's garbage bags.

Oh, yuck.

Not much bothers me. Even roadkill. Still, I hoped I hadn't picked it up.

I went home and started going through the pots.

Sure enough, I smelled that smell again. And discovered a small possum lying curled up in a pot. Not a baby, more like juvenile size.

Then, to my horror, it looked at me and feebly tried to raise its head.

Oh my God. The poor thing.

That motherfucker had beaten it half to death. And then left it, still alive, to suffer in the heat.

Outraged and grieved, I went inside and called the city for the wildlife rescue telephone number. I called them up; they turned out to be the Humane Society, and they asked me to bring the animal in if I could.

Of course. Of course.

I drove out there with the possum in its pot, and the pot in a plastic grocery bag. The people at the wildlife rescue center were wonderful. They thanked me over and over and were patient with my worries. When I said I didn't think the possum would make it, it smelled dead even though it wasn't, they told me the vet was already looking at him, and he'd be put out of his pain and his suffering if that was all they could do. At least he wouldn't hurt any more.

People.

I am not naive. Sometimes folks get a mistaken impression of me because I say things like, *I hate unkindness.* That doesn't make me dumb. People do good things and bad things and to me, the single most important factor in understanding the world and humanity and what's right and what's wrong is this: First comes reality. As much as we can, we need to understand the facts before we make judgements and decisions. Before. I try to see all things clearly, human nature included.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that many people's instant reaction to seeing any wild animal is to kill it without thought. They even brag about it, or worse yet, enjoy it. Like it takes a Real Brave Person to stomp on a lizard. Gee. What a hero, huh?

This person was not unintelligent. He was just a vicious thoughtless fool.

We do NOT *need* to kill possums. That is false. Untrue. Unreal. With very rare exceptions, we don't NEED to kill anything except food animals. Some people don't even eat meat, at that.

When you do kill something, do it fast and do it right. Don't leave an animal suffering because you were too fucking stupid to finish the job right.

Possums are harmless. All he ever had to do was leave it alone. Barring that? Call animal control, let them catch it or kill it. Clearly this one required a professional, because the homeowner didn't do the job correctly.

I didn't have a very good day, yesterday. But that innocent animal sure had it worse. And if I could, I'd like to have that homeowner feel, just for a few minutes, what he made that creature feel. The terror, the pain, the anguish, the hopelessness. The agony of impending death.

Unlike the possum, he deserves it.