It’s not every day that you find yourself outsmarted by a rodent. But what if that rodent had its intelligence enhanced by a super drug? Well, this one hadn’t yet taken it.
In my place of work, where I have actively proved my worth for years, I was belittled by one of the littlest beings. As a scientist working to create a healthier world, I have been part of a team developing the cure for various illnesses. It was a number of childhood traumas which motivated me to pursue this field. If one were to name any disease, there is a high chance a family member of mine was the first to have it. In a sense, my choice of career was me fighting my own genetics. Not quite a hero’s tale, but enough peril to position me as a compelling protagonist.
In the opposite corner is my archnemesis. My foe. A young lab rat who doesn’t have any of the inspiring backstory that I do. They had come to be known in our circles as Mr. Snufflebumps. In order to assess the success of our trial drug, we had him complete a series of mazes. On a whim, I decided to do the same. Obviously, I had the advantage of having a top view of the maze, but I thought it would be a fun and easy exercise. It was only when I compared our times did my mental spiral begin.
Six seconds. The rat solved the maze six seconds faster than me. I am an accomplished scientist. He poops in a cage. But that’s probably because I didn’t put much effort into it, right? Next, I focused my full mental energy on crushing Mr. Snufflebumps. With my best effort, I managed to close the gap between us. To four seconds. After thirty more attempts, that was the best I could do.
I had found myself intellectually challenged by Mr. Snufflebumps, and I was losing. Unfortunately, this is my nemesis. A rodent. Not even an enhanced rodent. A plain one. What has my life come to? The embarrassment crushed my soul. All food lost taste, my body ached, and I tested positive for Covid. Everything had gone wrong. But I managed to cope with the shame. This is how I did it.
It began with anger. Perhaps it was misdirected. Chairs were flipped, accusations were made, and cheese was tossed out of a window. In addition to having my ego beaten to a pulp, I now had a written complaint filed against me. A small part of my psyche did consider tampering with the rat’s maze performance. I could remove the scent of the cheese at the end of the maze to cripple the rat’s judgment. Or I could fudge the times. Or I could let Mr. Snufflebumps ‘escape’ the lab. I did none of those things. Yes, it would keep others from learning of my failure, but I would know. After I had gotten the scheming out of my system, I moved to the next step.
Venting. Rather than whining at work, I whined at home. To vent my frustrations, I purchased a dartboard, took a photo of Mr. Snufflebumps, and placed it right on the bullseye. Sadly, I learned that I was bad at darts. The photo remained in pristine condition.
Next, I took my woes back to the office. In my team, I pondered lobotomy. Doctors used to remove parts of the brain to treat mental illness. They’re no longer performed due to how nonsensical the very concept of it is. How could you possibly just remove part of a brain as treatment? But, I had reached a point where every waking thought I had was dedicated to the shame that Mr. Snufflebumps had cast upon me. I floated the idea of removing the part of my brain that felt embarassment. The team laughed it off and carried on with their conversation about changing the world or something of that nature. When I casually brought up performing the lobotomy on Mr. Snufflebumps instead, they all stopped talking and stared at me. Was that so outrageous? Removing a human’s brain was a fun joke to them, but doing the same to a rat was too far, apparently.
Those were the thoughts swirling around my mind at the time. Soon after, I calmed down and thought about things rationally. Mr. Snufflebumps may be a maze master, but I have so much more to offer. How many degrees has the rodent got? I suppose that’s because of a pre-existing wealth inequality between us. Is the rodent well-respected in their community? Well, yes, all the other lab rats seem to enjoy their company. But have they won a lifetime supply of Frosties? I guess we feed him for the rest of his life so he doesn’t need that.
What really healed my shattered pride was the realisation that I was highly overestimating the value of mazes. Before this moment, I had found myself in a grand total of zero mazes. It is unlikely that I will ever need to solve one, let alone have to do it faster than a rat. In fact, my moment of shame was completely unprompted. No one forced me to compete with Mr. Snufflebumps. I could have carried on with my life without the knowledge that I was outperformed by a rat. It was unnecessary. In the end, I came to accept that though mazes were not my strong suit, they simply did not matter enough for me to care. My life will go on.
Also, I learned how to play the piano. Suck on that, Mr. Snufflebumps.
The Ipe Collection 