If it’s Thursday …

… it must be time for the Thursday Thumb-Twiddler! Remember, when you do the Thursday Thumb-Twiddler, you not only entertain your readers, you stoke my lumbering ego, too! What a deal!

Now to eat my own dog food …

1. With a poof of inky black smoke, the Devil appears before you and offers you long years of success and fortune, all in exchange for that little intangible he calls your soul. Do you prick your finger and sign on the dotted line?

I’m sort of agnostic about the whole Devil thing. The idea of an Evil Overlord behind the scenes, tempting people into doing nasty stuff, especially all for some great cosmic soul-tallying game, makes for some entertaining reading, but I’m not sure it makes for good theology without getting into some weird Manichaean thing.

(Okay, now I’ve officially used my Big Word for Today.)

The idea of Devil as Tempter also seems to let folks off the hook for making bad decisions. “The Devil Made Me Do It” is the oldest excuse in the book.

That having been said, if presented with the above scenario, I’d like to think I’d grab a crucifix off the wall (or rummage around in a drawer for one), shout, “Get the behind me, Satan!” and maybe even find the opportunity at long last to use the word “abjure” in a sentence. I might simply be polite in my refusal — I’ve played way too much D&D to think you can bargain with a Monstrous Intelligence and come out ahead in the deal. (See! D&D is good for the soul!)

Of course, the trick is to recognize the Devil when the offer to sell your soul is being made. Metaphorically, at the very least.

2. If you walked out of your house tomorrow morning and saw a bird with a broken wing huddled in some nearby bushes, what would you do?

I’ve had to deal with similar situations in the past, when one of the cats managed to injure, but not kill, a bird before we intervened. (Margie suggests that any bird caught by our ten year old, one-eyed, belled cat is simply an improvement in the gene pool.) In the one particular instance I can think of, I ended up covering the poor injured thing with a cloth, then killed it with a shovel. It was far too wounded to recover. It was not a pleasant experience.

If it were one of the small birds we have in the area, even if the outward injuries were no greater, I would likely do the same. I think there are organizations that take in injured birds and care for them, but I’m not sure that’s the best use of resources in the world. Better to let the little soul fly free and find lodging in a healthier shell.

For a larger bird, a raptor for example, I’d reverse that, and find one of those organizations. That’s probably sizeist of me, but there you go. I’ve done some peripheral work with raptor recovery projects in the past (working in a lab where mice were bred to feed them, to be honest), and I think it’s a good cause.

3. What’s the best use you can think of for snow?

A big, fat, juicy snowball slammed right into the interface between the back of the head and the jacket comes to mind.

My in-laws like to make Scotch Slushies out of newfallen snow when they visit.