UNFORGIVING NATURE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-23-23)

 

    Nature is revolting. For example, I was walking along my street with my dog, and this enormous pine cone dropped right in front of me, missing me by inches. Of all the enormous pine cones in the world, this particular one came down right when I was almost underneath it? I'm telling you right now, this was no accident. It reminded me of when I was in a Hollywood cliché where I'm standing on a stage, and a sandbag held aloft by a fraying rope is about to drop onto my head, and the hero, at the last second, sees it and rushes in to push a really hot girl out of the way who is nowhere near it, and the sandbag drops onto my head, knocking me conscious. And he says, "Are you all right?" And I say I think so, and he says, "I was talking to the hot girl." And he grabs her in his arms and I ask, "Where are you going?" And he shouts, "There's no time to explain!" And he whisks her out the door and into a restaurant across the street that's really hard to get reservations for.

     Anyway, I think it's a sign. I think Mother Nature is talking to us, saying, "Clean up your room! NOW!" Okay, your Mom might ground you for a couple weeks or take away your phone if you do something bad. But when you get Mother Nature angry, it's a different level of punishment. Feast, famine, plague, that sort of thing. And we're seeing more and more of it.

     What about the otters? Otters are about the most playful creatures on the Earth. And yet, a man training for a triathlon a couple months ago sustained a prolonged attack by two otters as he was swimming in a lake in the Sierra Nevadas. He tried to swim away, at a rate of speed that probably would have won him the triathlon, but the otters kept cutting him off and biting him. He was terrified, and his wife finally came out on a paddle board and rowed him to safety. I don't know about this guy but my wife would have made me promise to get rid of all that crap in the garage, change the light bulbs in front of the house that have been out for weeks, and a dozen other things before she rescued me from an otter attack. She would have brought a pen so she could get it in writing. Anyway, otters are normally peaceful, have a great sense of humor and excel at board games, but they will attack if threatened, so saying things like, "Why don't you come at me, bro?" should be avoided. But this was an unprovoked aggression.

     Another example is the case of orcas attacking boats in Europe and Australia. While there have been no reported deaths as yet, the sudden downturn in behavior exhibited in animals thought to be benign to humans is somewhat disquieting. If I would have been present during the attack, once I dried off I would have asked the orca, "Why are you doing this to us?" His probably would be, "We're not happy with your stewardship of the Earth. And by the way, we are 'killer' whales, not 'second-degree attempted manslaughter' whales, so consider yourself lucky." "Lucky is that guy on that boat over there, who is bone-dry and nursing a frozen mango margarita, laughing at us." "He's next."

     Humans have been running this planet for a long time, and it's not going that great. We have always assumed that we are the smartest animals on the planet, even though my cat sits around 23 hours a day, gets all his meals for free, never tips, never fills out any paperwork of any kind, free medical (no dental though), no jury duty, short commute and can lick his own tail.

     Maybe we're not that smart after all. We've dumped a lot of carbon dioxide into the air. And every time one of those genius politicians opens his mouth about how scientists are wrong about climate change, guess what comes out? More carbon dioxide. Those who think, well, there are plenty of natural resources out there, let's just use them up and then we'll figure something else out should consider one thing: That oil we pump out of the ground comes from the bones of an extinct species. Hmmmm.

      You can hardly blame Mother Nature for being angry. I don't remember my own Mom being too tough on me, but when she was really mad I used get a whacking on the behind with the hairbrush. It was corporal punishment, and I was a major pain in the neck, so I actually outranked my punishment. But would resort to hiding the hairbrush from her. This explains a little about my lack of discipline, and a lot about my hair.