Baaa, humbug
by Kate Zimmerman for the North Shore News
TUESDAY’S front page news story claiming that there is a flock of sheep in Reno, Nevada that is 10 percent human prompted a certain amount of speculation on my part.
With my slippery grip on genetics, I couldn’t quite see how a) this was possible, without the shaming of at least one Nevada farmhand and b) how this was supposed to be an improvement for the sheep.
The news story went on to discuss stem cell research and how genetically modified sheep might eventually provide benefits to imperfect human embryos. But even the Globe & Mail reporter wondered whether human cells could eventually take over a sheep’s brain, leading to what experts call “a human trapped in an animal’s body.” The Stanford University bioethicist who responded to this question was, shall we say, disturbingly hazy.
I, too, was puzzled by how the animals’ humanness might eventually manifest itself. The picture accompanying the story depicted sheep staring at the camera sheepishly. Despite their Nevada location, none of the animals wore showgirl boas, shiny Rat Pack suits, drunken leers or lipstick on their collars. So the experiment hadn’t yet affected the sheep’s style choices.
I tried to think of which human characteristics might be a plus for sheep. The only bad thing I’ve ever heard about sheep is that they lack leadership ability. So in an ideal world, scientific tinkering would give sheep the gift of management expertise. We humans pride ourselves on exerting our authority. Parents, especially, like to practice it daily. Why wouldn’t a mother sheep benefit from the ability to hector her lambs the way we do our progeny, pestering them about their looks, their manners, and their poor taste in barnyard companions? (“That young ram is only after one thing.”) And surely any lamb’s dad would enjoy yelling at a sheepdog “Enough with the pointless herding. And get your hair out of your eyes.”
After all, being able to find fault is what sets us apart from the animals. (For some of us, it’s all that sets us apart from the animals.) That must be why most of us like to let loose on the innocents we encounter, bent on improving even the strangers whose paths we regrettably cross.
I recently got the chance to stay at the Four Seasons Whistler, a hotel so swank that it bakes the dog biscuits for guests’ canines from scratch. (I must say, they were delicious.) Each dog gets an “amenities kit” — including earthenware bowls for use during its stay — along with the pillow the hotel provides for the animal’s slumbers.
No creature comfort is overlooked for the humans who patronize this establishment, either, from the fruit set out for guests in their rooms when they arrive, to the toiletries from the tony L’Occitane de Provence.
Executive chef Jason Macleod revealed during a chat that one of the hotel’s practices is having staff meet twice a day to trade information about any slip-ups they have been perceived to have made, and the way in which they corrected the error. Was a solitary steak sent back to the kitchen because it didn’t arrive on the table at the “correct” level of doneness? Has a toilet paper roll displeased a patron because its outside edge was not held fast by the Four Seasons’ decal? Even the tiniest ostensible oversight rates a mention in these meetings.
Now, you and I know that there is no way of completely satisfying a finicky Felix. But because this is a hotel chain that prides itself on its perfectionism, it continues to strive to silence its critics.
Few of us try anywhere near that hard. Most of us react negatively to fault-finding, and can recall the more embarrassing incidents of being corrected with petty accuracy. I can remember being informed long ago by an older newspaper colleague that, in conversation, I had incorrectly used the word “infer” to mean “imply.” I remember having my fresh enthusiasm for the movie Easy Rider, seen decades after it first came out, squashed by another older colleague’s remark that “Easy Rider was a nosepickers’ movie.” I can also remember being denounced sarcastically as “bright spark Zimmerman” by a particularly insensitive science teacher. These are the sorts of indelible memories that new, improved sheep can now look forward to making.
How much longer will they have to “evolve” before their elders learn the important lesson — not far off from the Golden Rule — “Praise in public, criticize in private”? Many of us humans haven’t grasped that one yet, and we actually have hands. How much harder to grasp a thing when you have hooves?
I was startled the other night, while eating at a wonderful restaurant that had an attentive sommelier from Quebec, to hear a nearby diner correcting his English. She felt that he would appreciate the unsolicited coaching, as she herself would if she were in his position. Maybe it’s true that a sophisticated man enjoys being told how to phrase something properly in his second language, even in front of a third party. I myself find that if I try to inflict my halting French on others, only the gentlest of corrections by a Francophone can be made without my collapsing into a pool of melted fromage. Obviously I am poorly suited to any role in the hospitality industry, where people you don’t know, who couldn’t hope to do your job, can always find room in you for improvement — and tell you so.
I’m guessing that, with their newfound human quality, the Nevadan sheep are going to make the staff at hotels and restaurants worldwide miserable with nasal critiques. And once they start going into teaching, their legacy is likely to be especially unforgettable as they whine about this, that and the other from their unique cloven-footed perspective.
I can’t help wondering what those scientists were thinking. Sure, their goal is altruistic and could benefit humans some day. But aren’t sheep already the perfect creatures? What more should we want from an animal that provides us with wool, milk and meat, and lets just about anybody boss it around? If sheep stop being our docile suppliers and instead become wool-bearing versions of whiners like us, where will that leave us people, who can neither be sheared, economically milked, nor paired perfectly with mint jelly?
Once scientists have discovered exactly what percentage of humanness makes a better sheep, it won’t take the wisest owl to figure out what percentage of sheep-ness makes a better human. I see us headed to the bottom of the food chain in a hand-basket, those of us with the fattiest shanks shoved to the front of the line.
I do know that once we arrive at our new barnyard destination, we will vigorously fill out all sorts of comment cards remarking on how chilly it is in our “room,” how the bathroom facilities are “sub-par,” and how the garnishes on the food in our troughs look “tired.”
At least our new masters, the sheep, being physically unable to snatch our pens, can’t take our entitlement to complain away from us.
Writing > Humour
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