The Congo Basin, Africa:
A hungry chimpanzee, craving her favorite snack, modifies a blade of grass and uses it to penetrate a termite’s nest. With this tool, she by-passes hours of labor for a small reward, in favor of munching away at will. Exhausted from her protein-rich snack, she scratches her ass and settles under a tree for a nap, nursing the vague hope that someone will come along and groom her.
Houston, Texas, North America:
A hungry English teacher, in need of a quick meal during her brief lunch-break, opens a drawer and takes out a can opener, which she uses to access her organic vegetarian chili. With this tool, she by-passes forty-five minutes wasted on sweating in the sun as she repeatedly smashes the can into the side of a building, in favor of easy access to some tasty sustenance. Exhausted from her protein-rich meal, she yawns, puts her feet up on a desk, and snoozes through her off period, nursing the vague hope that some natural disaster will spare her having to teach sixth period.
I have always thought of humans simply as animals with abnormally large frontal lobes and fancy tools, but it wasn’t until Hurricane Rita loomed and I had to evacuate Houston that my own circumstances made me so acutely aware of that notion.
In September of 2005 when the hurricane was still in the Gulf of Mexico and still a category five storm, Katrina-scarred Houstonians were in a state of panic. The hurricane bore down on Houston, and all four million of us felt like our only choice was to evacuate. Since my boyfriend and I had purchased tickets to the Austin City Limits music festival for the coming weekend, we figured we would beat the storm by heading out to Austin a couple of days early. Feeling especially small and powerless despite all my fancy gadgets, insurance policies, and retirement investments, I was anxious to get out of Houston as soon as possible. We unplugged our electronics, moved computers and motorcycles out of harm’s way, and hopped in my boyfriend’s obscenely loaded car at 4 a.m. in hopes of beating the traffic. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, we were not the only Houstonians with a vivid sense of our own mortality.
The phrase “hurry up and wait” aptly describes the feeling on the highways that sticky morning…and afternoon…and evening…and, well, you get the idea. At around seven a.m., the sun had already begun its merciless ascent. By then, my boyfriend and I had spent three hours in the car, and we had traveled approximately fifteen miles, entertaining ourselves with peanut-butter sandwiches, AM radio, and incredulous interrogatives in which we manipulated the f-word with increasing skill. Drivers and passengers began to emerge from their vehicles to walk their dogs, socialize, and use the restroom. There being no restrooms available, we improvised. My throbbing bladder impelled me to seek a toilet in a trailer park about fifty yards off the side of the highway. After knocking on a couple of doors and getting no answer, I shrugged and squatted behind one of the homes. Oh! Sweet relief. Animal behavior number 1: I never thought I’d take a piss behind somebody’s trailer, only yards away from thousands of people. But I had to. And I loved it.
One hour and half a mile up the road, my boyfriend tired of stopping and starting his engine every couple of minutes, so he began to allow some space between him and the car ahead before pulling up. This saved gas, and in a situation where we had no clue when we would encounter a gas station, it also seemed prudent. A number of testosterone-soaked SUV-driving Texans, however, disagreed. Revving their engines, they sped into the gap in front of us, only to sit for just as long as everyone else. More incredulous use of the f-word. Finally, a Texan got out of his SUV and approached our car: “Why don’t ya’ll pull up?” My boyfriend replied, “I don’t want to stop and re-start my engine that often. And anyway, what difference does it make?” Texan: “It’s inconsiderate to other drivers.” Boyfriend: “Just chill.” The Texan, unsatisfied, got back in his SUV, and rumbled up onto the grass and into the gap in front of us, where he sat for hours, like everyone else. Animal behavior number 2: We all wanted to get out of Houston, and like lemmings off a cliff, Houstonians pushed and shoved their way to nowhere.
As the sun beat down and tempers flared, I felt a bit like snail among a herd of wildebeests. As they kick up dust and panic rises, it becomes clear that the smallest provocation can lead to stampede-a tiny spark with huge consequences-the Rodney Jones case igniting race riots that vent years of pent-up anger and frustration.
We humans are a particularly destructive herd suffering from delusions of individual grandeur. Though one life is no more important than another, we are so swept away by our own sense of self importance that we will run ourselves right off a cliff along with everybody else. And perhaps with the population explosion that threatens our planet, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
We’re not that easy to kill off, however. Right up there with the delusion-rich herd mentality is the psychological phenomenon of learned helplessness. A callous behavioral psychologist named Martin Seligman was conducting research on a group of dogs using electric shock. He found that initially, the dogs searched for an escape from the painful voltage; however, if he consistently prevented escape and continued the shocks, eventually the dogs seemed to accept (or learn) their helplessness, and curl up in their cages whimpering softly at the torture. When the barrier to their escape was finally lifted, they did not move. Despite being a highly disturbing and (in my opinion) unethical experiment, Seligman’s research led to a fuller understanding of human behavior. (After all, we are just fancy animals.)
Animal behavior number three: As my boyfriend and I grew accustomed to our plight, we became giddy and then apathetic. During the giddy stage (approximately hours three through five), I flashed him, he told me a story he had made up, and I contemplated doing a strip-tease for the entire traffic jam. We also considered corralling the kids and forcing them to learn some English and biology. (He is a high school biology teacher.) At hour six, the giddiness faded into an apathy made apparent by silence and mindless trail mix consumption. At its extreme, we had the air conditioning off, the windows rolled down, and were stopped next to a rancid chunk of roadkill. I could not even bring myself to complain about the smell or request that we roll up the windows and turn on the a.c. momentarily.
Fortunately, we made it to I-10, which the local authorities finally got around to de-clogging by opening the East-bound lanes to West-bound traffic. We, unlike Seligman’s poor dogs, snapped out of our stupor and took advantage of these newly empty lanes and sped as far as the highway could take us toward our destination. Other drivers were not so pro-active. They continued to whimper in more heavily trafficked lanes, even as other motorists zoomed past.
After fourteen hours of travel, we reached Austin. Normally, this is a two and a half hour trip. There, we took much-needed showers, ate solid food, loosened up with a couple of drinks, had sex, and went to bed. In other words, we groomed, fed, mated, and slept. The one action that separated us from animals that entire hellish day was getting drunk. Now that’s something to be proud of.
