It’s been more than a decade since I left UBC. I was genuinely excited to revisit campus this weekend and finally pick up the degree frame I forgot to buy over ten years ago.
My warm nostalgia was short-lived.
As I drove through campus, armies of fearless little monsters dominated the streets. One particularly bold individual even used the roof of my car as a public toilet. Reaching the spot was an athletic impossibility, forcing me to leave it there…….. fully aware it might become a high-speed projectile for someone’s windshield on the highway. Oh sh1t!…
For a brief, intrusive second, a primal impulse took over: floor the pedal, run these little devils over, and claim the red remains smeared on the pavement were just spilled McDonald’s ketchup. Or better yet, pin the whole hit-and-run on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving. Morally questionable? Absolutely. But an entirely human urge.
I was ready to pull into Canadian Tire, load up on poison pellets, and save the UBC administration the trouble of forming steering committees, ethics review boards, and oversight councils for an "eco-friendly safe squirrel euthanasia initiative." That whole bureaucratic circus would undoubtedly demand government research grants and take ten full years before a single decision was made. Sometimes direct citizen action feels entirely warranted.
Before heading to the cashier, though, I double-checked with Grok, only to learn that secondary poisoning would wipe out any birds of prey or scavengers eating the toxic carcasses.
“EXCELLENT, two animals with one stone,” I initially thought… until I envisioned dozens of crows raining down from the sky in a full-blown, Exorcist-style scene.
That level of carnage would undoubtedly traumatize the thin-skinned glass-fragile Gen Z students on campus, and with the province's healthcare system already in the toilet, local ERs couldn't handle the influx of psychological shock.
In the end, cold consumer logic prevailed. My premium Michelin performance tires deserved far better care than acting as rodent pest control, and a biblical crow fallout was best avoided. High-end rubber and free-market capitalism saved their pitiful existence.
