On the tail incident.

About two weeks ago on my other blog I posted a story in which the stuffed rat Bjorn had his tail damaged in a disagreement with the other rats.
Why this tale of violence?
A couple of things:
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It was really a story of sibling or schoolyard rivalry, and how kids can gang up against one who seems to be too favored by the adults. In their attempt to put the other in his place, they go too far and try to cut his tail off. (Which doesn’t work entirely, but that was a technical problem - I was hoping the pruning shears would do it.)
None of the rats admits or complains to Maurice that there was any problem at all. No ratting, no whining.
It’s like the time when one of my brothers was picking on the other, who then broke one of the large windows at the front of the house. Rather than point the finger and get the other in trouble, the first brother hightailed it to the shop to buy an new windowglass and install it before our parents got home from work. I’m not sure they noticed the window right away, but the hole in the front door was still evidence of an altercation.
But anyway, when you’re little you might go running to Mom or Dad but when you’re a bit older you keep the kid feuds between kids.
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The other thing, it was just plain fun to go over the edge. People don’t expect that.
Toys don’t usually get better after you break them. But why not do it? Now I’m big, and employed and all, I can buy as many Ikea rats as I want. They’ve got them by the bin-full! Why not a tail off here, an explosion there, a bit of disembowelling, why not? There’s an exciting devlishness in going through with the threat. Now you’ll never know if next time the toy will make it to the end of the post. How about my wind-up dinosaurs, Harold and Marguerite - fun little guys, hmm? How would Harold do against a 16-ton weight? Wile E Coyote always got up afterward and staggered away...
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So now Bjorn has a band-aid holding his half-severed tail together. I may have shocked a few readers into not coming back, but I can live with that. I don’t like it when all the endings are happy - you stop allowing for the possibility of not having a happy ending, and the only suspense in how long it takes before the deus ex machina comes.
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