I can't relate to Nelson Mandela.

One of the movies I watched earlier this summer was "Invictus", which is about how anyone can win the World Cup if Nelson Mandela wants them to hard enough. I enjoyed the fact that, even though it was based on real life, the super scary impossible team to beat was the one with all-black uniforms, just like in the Mighty Ducks or any other underdog-wins-it-all kid's sports movie.

 At least 50% of what I know about Nelson Mandela came directly from this movie. (social studies was never my strong suit). At one point, the football team takes a tour of the prison and the cell where Mandela spent about 30 years of his life. It's half the size of my bedroom and not lavishly furnished. A lot of the movie is about how some people expect him to be all pissed off and revenge-y now that he's in charge, but instead he's all like "No, everyone, the country is the most important and we need to be peaceful and get along, ok? Hey, wait, just watch this football match and get distracted and excited about that." Someone remarks that he spent 30 years in a box and came out ready to love the people who put him there.

This makes my brain explode.

At the time I was watching this, I had been in a back brace and pretty immobile for 2 or 3 weeks. Nobody put me there unless you count that jerk gravity. I would have throttled babies if it would get me out of it any sooner.

After telling this to my brother, who has a bigger soft spot for very young humans and animals than I ever will, he got a little upset and said "No, you wouldn't! Don't say that." I considered, and realized that if I think about it hard enough, babies are people too and I probably wouldn't hurt them. Puppies, though. I would absolutely throttle puppies if it would help. Not dogs, but only because most of them could probably take me in a fight. Baby bunnies? Definitely. With my bare hands. He wasn't really a lot less shocked about that, but I stand by it.

This is the cutest baby bunny I could find, because imagining me throttling him is still probably less offensive than me trying to draw stick-figure Nelson Mandela.

I declare that my life is more important than an animal's. In fact, my quality of life is more important than an animal's life. I imagine I would take some heat for that, if more than 4 people read this blog. Here's the thing though - with the exception of any super strict lifelong leather-avoiding animal-tested-product-eschewing vegans out there, you all have made the same choice. If you eat a turkey sandwich, you are declaring that the quality of your lunch is more important than an animal's life. So if it would magically heal my spine faster, I would absolutely end the lives of any number of small creatures. If there is a difference between this and eating the turkey sandwich, it's that at least I would be doing my own dirty work. Which probably makes it more, not less, moral. (and yes, my brother eats turkey and other meats).

So how Nelson Mandela managed to be chill about being forced to spend three decades in a box is beyond my comprehension. A lesser, slightly pettier man might inspire admiration, but Nelson laps himself and just inspires confusion and a suspicion that he might not actually be a real person.