went to some hot springs with my parents and my friend becky. spent all day trying to catch a minnow in one of the cold ponds. well, I spent like half an hour trying to catch this minnow. I was eight years old at the time, so it felt like all day. finally got it in a styrofoam cup. showed mom and dad, told them I was taking it home with me. they said no you're not. I said yes I am. no you're not. I cried. still no. I wanted the fish to be my pet - I caught it, you see. they would not let me keep it, so I threw it into the boiling-hot spring, where it turned brown and shriveled up and died. my mother told me I have a mean streak.

Threw rocks at the cat of the neighbor-girl-up-the-street, Mr. Belvedere. I was maybe 10, and the neighbor-girl-up-the-street and I had a hot again cold again friendship depending on the politics of the under 13 set that week -- and that particular week it was very very COLD. I had it trapped under a car and just kept pitching rocks at it (though I think I only hit it a couple of times)and one of the neighbor-across-the-street ladies came out and yelled at me, and said she knew I loved animals and what could I possibly be thinking, and she was right, and I stopped. But to this day I feel really shitty about it.

Couple of things come to mind. First was in elementary school. This bully was being mean to a friend of mine n smackin them around, so I jumped in to 'save' my friend, grabing their arm to pull them away from the flailing bully so I could get a crack at him, but I was excited and pulled too hard and my friend fell down and broke their arm. Felt bad like it was my fault for a long long time. Second thing, was a stray cat and 2 kittens. The mommy cat got run over n killed, and the 2 wild kittens hid under the house and wouldn't come out for anything, were terrified. Everything i tried couldn't bring them out. Finally, I cleaned up the mommy cat, poised her as if she were ok, tail up in the air, head in a bowl of milk, then I hid behind the wall and stared meowing like a happy mommy kitty, and sure enough the 2 kittens came running out all happy smelling their mommy and the milk n hearing me meowing, then I grabbed them both just about the time they got to her. It was the only thing I could think of doing to get them out, and they wouldn't come out or eat or drink or anything, but it still felt cruel to use the dead kitty to fake them out - even though it was to save them in the end.

Whet, punkin, I don't think you have a mean bone in your body. In fact, I think the "cruel" mommy cat trick was pretty ingenious and I commend you for both the means, the ends, and the hearts&smarts which brought 'em together. Damn, that story made me smile. It wasn't mean AT ALL.

Truly Whet. How'd you ever manage to position that dead cat so realistically? I can see how her tail might stick up once rigor mortis set in. But how did you keep her from falling over on the ground? Or into the milk? (You must be able to do some amazing shit w/yr passed-out drunk friends...) I wd've just left a can of cat food & a dish of water out for them. If they refused to come out & eat/they woulda been 2 little starvin'-assed kitties.

On my brother's last birthday, I didn't wish him a happy one. That, and beating up a boy named Camron every day for the entire sixth grade are about as mean as I get. Oh, and right now I'm chewing the tip of my sister's pen, which should gross her out considerably! hehe! Go me!! I think I spelt "considerably" wrong...

I hear you Cyst. I always have had a facination with fish--whether they were half-dead or dead. I remember my parents letting playing with dying chubs( bait ) when I was four. Putting sand in their mouths, wriggling their near-expired bodies in the water. Complete fun for me...who would have known at that age. Now I catch and release, for fun only. Still something about that tug on the line, that I have felt a thousand times, that gets my adrenaline pumping. Now for my confession: I was moving last year during the winter. Trying to get rid of most items that I could. I couldn't pawn my iguana to anybody. He was a viscous lil' shit. This was due to my neglect of handling him during his formative years. Instead of moving him, along with his massive 6x4 cage, almost the perfect habitat for any lizard. I decided to end his life. I regret this everytime I see a reptile or think of him. I put him in the homemade gas chamber in the trunk of my car. Filled of what I thought was a very lethal dose of potassium-cyanide mixed with hydrochloric acid. This was a most definite death for him. So I thought. I don't know if my "lethal" mixture was off or if the reagents were old and expired, but it didn't work. He was still alive after 10 or so minutes. Then the killer in me uprooted. I put him in a plastic bag with much trouble--he gave me the last, deserving open slice of the thumb...bled all over, not even pissed at him. Then I did it. The cruelest death imaginible..............I snapped his neck. It was the worst feeling in the world. Here I had raised him, tried to tame him with my lame approach and ended his life because I didn't want to deal with him any longer. To this day I feel like complete shit. His life was no less a dog's, no less a dolphin's, no less a child's. But I took his life thinking he wasn't that worthy of an existence...he was "only" a lizard, cheap when I purchased him, having the best itentions of raising him. I still have very bad dreams to this day. I still confront my own demons about his wasteful death. I had no right to kill an amazing creature like him. None.