Loving Wildlife to Death

Wildlife. Generally speaking we love it. And, we often love it to its own doom.

On BYU campus there is a herd of deer, and a pride of feral cats. They run rampant. The cats are generally speaking pretty schizo, but the deer are apathetic. The deer don't seem to care about people because they've been lulled into a dependency cycle.

At National Parks there are signs that advise people not to feed the wildlife, not to get too close to the wildlife, and in general be smart. Why? Well, if animals become too accustomed to people the begin to lose their ability to be wild. They let their guards down and become something in between domesticated and wild. What do Park Rangers do when a fox, bear, or deer gets a little too friendly around people? They shoot it.

However, because BYU is a religious institution, some tend to think all that roams on the campus is instantly Edenized. By that I mean, if it hops, crawls, quacks, trots, or slithers, it can do no harm, and it should be treated like a pet. BYU campus, for the record is nothing like Eden (You can take that to the bank). So my brother and I have devised a plan to make the feral animals wild once again. They need to fear man.

There have been many times my brother and I have come across the deer on our way to the gym, walking down the street in the early morning, or, on occasion in broad day light in between classes. It didn't matter how close my brother or I got to them, they didn't flinch. Well, we had to do something. It started with barking and chasing. Well, the deer reacted, but only to scamper some twenty feet away. So we continued to give chase, hooting and hollering and scattering sticks...but the effect was minimal. So my brother came up with a suggestion. 

You all are probably plenty familiar with ping pong paddles. Well, he figured he could easily get close to them and give them a smack on the behind. I assented that it was a good idea, but I suggested something more comedic. We could sedate the deer, then strap stuffed animal monkeys or elves on their back for the holidays. Or, we could even use battery-powered Christmas lights for their antlers. 

Needless to say, the ideas were brilliant. Expect to see a deer resembling rudolph, with a small stuffed gnome riding on its back sometime soon.

You Aren't REALLY Listening.

Let me start off by making a glittering general statement and blanket coverall assumption like I have done so many times:

We all think we're pretty clear communicators.

Here's the reality:

We aren't.

Even the best of communicators struggle in some of the seemingly simplest situations. For great examples look at people's close relationships: Good friends and family. And what are the two things that make those situations hard? 

For one we don't just communicate with our words. We communicate with metamessages. For those of you who don't know what a metamessage is, it's the message we send to someone behind what we say. It can come in the form on inflection, body language, facial expressions, or implicit positions that the other party supposedly already knows about. And, it's obvious to see why that would tend to complicate things more often in a close relationship. Your close friends and family know you. They know your tendencies, opinions, attitudes, etc. And, while you might think that would help them understand you better, often times it just gets in the way with what you really want to say.

The second problem is intrinsically related to the first. Instead of focusing on what you're saying, or even allowing you to speak, a close friend or family member will "interpret" using what they believe you want to say, or what they believe you are thinking. This means that they take a position on what you've said before you've said it, or if you've said it, they aren't hearing what you said, but what they think you wanted to say.

So, having identified the problem in this part of the blog post you might expect me to give a remedy. Well, I don't have one. I could blather on about how we should temper our use of preconceived notions about close friends and family so we actually hear them, instead of hearing what we think they are saying, but there's no clean cut way to do that. I'm sure we're all going to run into brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, grandparents, in-laws, and friends who will not let us say our piece, and when we do say it, they will have thought we meant something else. That's just life. But, perhaps if you've found yourself with this problem, you can refer them to this post so they can at least identify that what they are doing, and maybe give you a fair shake. 

That being said. It's not just their problem. It's yours too. And mine.

PS - I sure hope my brother reads this.

Puppy and Kitten Prank

Not too long ago, my friend Joey and I decided to do a prank. We were walking along the road side as is our custom at times, and we saw a lot of advertisements on telephone poles. Some of them read "High paying summer sales!," while others said, "5 Free pizzas!" And, on the whole I knew most of those ads were entirely ineffectual. However, that did little to stop us from doing the prank.

Everyone loves puppies. They're cute, fluffy at times, and all in all, adorable. Women faun over them, kids chase them, and even guys get noticeably gentler with puppies. And, on that same note, most people feel similarly about kittens. So, Joey and I decided to make puppy and kitten ads, looking up the most adorable pictures possible online. And, what made it good was that we put my brother's phone number on the kitten ad, and we put my friend Nick's name on the puppy ad. The ads said something like, "Adopt a puppy," or "Kittens for sale." So we made the ads, and printed up a bunch of copies, putting them on bulletin boards at local businesses, telephone poles, and all over BYU campus. Then, we waited.

After a couple days of no response from either Nick or my brother, we tried to pry in a round about way. I don't remember how we asked them, but I'm sure it was something like this: "Hey, have you been getting any strange phone calls lately?" And the response was something like this: "I don't think so...wait, actually, just yesterday I had a voicemail message about some kittens or something." I tried to contain myself. "Oh," I said. "That's weird." So it turns out they only got a couple calls, and my brother hardly answers his phone so they were mostly voicemail messages. Joey and I were hoping for a better turnout, but it was still pretty funny. Definitely funny enough to do again. I recommend it.

For more funny puppy stories go to this Strongbad email.

*If the picture is not in the public domain I apologize, but it's back-linked to the site of origin and you are getting free publicity.