Rats
An old friend called to say he was getting back with his ex.
I cringed.
I said, “They train rats to push a lever to get a food
pellet. They put some of the rats on a schedule. Every so many pushes they get
a reward for pushing the lever.”
“So I’m a rat,” he said.
“Other rats get
rewarded randomly. They never know how many pushes before they get rewarded.”
“Still don’t like being called a rat.”
“The rats on a schedule will quit pushing the lever once
they miss a couple of rewards. The other rats will keep pushing, thinking the
reward must be coming soon.”
“Don’t get the point of all this rat BS,” he said
“Some people have learned stop doing what isn’t rewarding. Others
keep waiting for rewards few and far between, like living for another kind word
from an abusive partner.”
Silence.
I said, “A rat will die because the rare rewards don’t make
up for the effort they put out pushing the lever. Please don’t be that rat.”
Today I’ll help someone not be that rat.
Summer with the Slug
Rats © 2020 by Ken Montrose
Summer with the Slug
Rats is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone
you might know is purely coincidental.
Other works
by Ken Montrose are available at:
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