I can't stand lab rats. I hate their unnatural lack of disease with their own special breeding programmes and whatnot, I hate their status as the last word before you get to humans when scientists are testing theories, I really hate that whole rattier than thou attitude they have going. I hate them.

Worst of all is their lack of imagination. Make one go through a maze and offer it cheese at the end and your work is done. It'll power through that freakin' maze until the end of time expecting some more cheese. The stupid lab rat is not going to stop occasionally and contemplate Kierkegaard or write a string quartet or even just take a random left-turn because it's a Wednesday. No. It'll just go straight for the freakin' cheese. Stupid lab rat.

The thing that brought these miserable creatures to mind was seeing people driving this afternoon. Light goes yellow? Accelerate. Here's a clue: it doesn't make a difference. All it does is say to the world “I am well aware that I was supposed to have stopped but I'm going anyway.”

The cheese hypnotises the lab rat and all thought ceases.

It's only a little thing — and I'm in a sufficiently mad funk at the moment to get worked up about little things — but if you're going to run the light just sail blithely through the intersection. Save fuel. Don't look like a freakin' lab rat.

¶ 5:45 pm