Do you know how Eskimos take care of a wolf problem? I heard this in a sermon illustration in middle school.
What they do is dip a sword or machete of some sort into a bucket of blood. Then they let it freeze. Then they dip it again. They repeat this until a thick coat of blood builds up around the blade. Then, at night, they stick the sword, hilt-first, into the snow and go to sleep.
The wolf’ll come by and sniff blood and take a closer look. She’ll lick it. Then she’ll lick some more. Soon enough the wolf is essentially deep-throating this thing and, like a freezy, it numbs her mouth. She doesn’t feel it when it starts cutting. She can’t taste the difference between the sword blood and her own blood. Eventually, with tongue and throat sliced to ribbons, she bleeds out, a pool of red and bloodlust on the white white white snow.
I told my mother this story in the kitchen once. She stopped me. “Why would you tell me that?” she asked. She didn’t want to know.
I was furious. How could someone willingly blind herself to a truth about the world? Here was a fact (I heard it in a sermon; it’s probably apocryphal). I couldn’t comprehend not collecting as much information about the earth’s workings as possible, regardless of squeamishness.
My mother probably doesn’t remember this. It was years ago now. As I age, graceful as dry heaving, I think about it semi-frequently. I’m coming round to her side.
There are certain things about the world I’d just rather not know.
[The Lioness.]