Day of the Dead

Day 17

Today is "Kill Something Day." Apart from any ethical implications, this was physically hard to accomplish. It's not that I don't have the strength to squash a bug, but rather finding a bug or other live non-human in the middle of an Iowa winter is kind of like trying to find a needle in a haystack, except the haystack is in Australia, and all you have to work with is a magnifying glass and a pair of your grandmother's tweezers. You know how people say that you're never more than three feet away from a spider or whatever? Not true in the slightest. In short, I couldn't find one. I searched casually for most of the day, but went on a legitimate hunt through the dorm as I began to become tired. I still didn't manage to turn up anything though. I recalled a conversation I had in which someone mentioned that I probably didn't necessarily have to have to kill an animate object. I could perhaps kill a plant or something. I thought that this was kind of cheating, but with no other alternative, I went on a plant hunt through the dorm. I now know that other than humans, absolutely nothing has the capacity to live here. I briefly thought that maybe I could just pick a leaf off of the tree outside, but I realized, of course, that it is still winter. With no other options left, I decided to target myself. Well, my skin cells. I guess they're a living part of me, though I'm not entirely sure. Whatever the case may be, I scraped my index finger with my nail, and washed away the cells with soap. I figure that probably got a few hundred of them, though I'm not basing that off of actual knowledge. I was worried I wouldn't be able to complete today's task at all, so I suppose this is better than nothing.