Lab rats have it made. I’ve always thought that. Half the time they don’t even know they’re being experimented on. They’re just running around a maze having a good time and suddenly they get a treat. And if a good scientist is running the experiment the treat is getting injected with drugs.
That’s why I’ve decided to adopt a lab rat mentality. Live like a rat and all will be well. That’s my motto. I figured the best way to start was to do a maze, so I headed on down to the corn maze.
Whatever farmer made the corn maze didn’t plan it too well. There weren’t defined paths and I had to barrel my way through the corn. And there was a corn harvesting machine that would chase me around. Once I escaped the maze, I realized it wasn’t a maze at all–the maze was one farm over. This was just in a normal cornfield.
I got to the real maze and went right in. I’m going to be honest with you, the real maze was a lot harder than the other one because you had to find the right path. If you reached a dead end and started climbing through the corn as a shortcut, some child would start yelling and calling you a cheater. Hey kid back off this doesn’t concern you.
Another thing to mention is that there were a lot of scarecrows in the maze. Seeing all those scarecrows made me realize, man, crows are some real pansies. If I were to see a man at a farm, I wouldn’t be scared at all. Business as usual. And if the man were made of straw, even better. There’s nothing scary about straw. That’s why they make hats out of it.
I was stuck in the maze for a while though, and it started to get dark. That’s when I started to adopt a crow mentality. Scarecrows look pretty scary at night, I’ve gotta admit it. I had to tackle a few out of fear.
I was getting pretty hungry, so I munched on some of the raw corn. Raw corn has got to be one of the worst foods I’ve ever munched. I tried to start a little fire to cook it by rubbing together the sticks of a scarecrow I’d tackled. I wasn’t making progress until, woosh, just like that the whole field was ablaze.
They called in a helicopter with a big bucket of water and dumped it on the fire. The aftermath of the fire really put the maze into perspective, because all the corn stalks were shorter and I could see right through to the exit.
The owner of the maze was pretty mad at me for burning all his corn, but I said hey, these things happen. Plus you had us sign that waiver that said “anything goes in the maze.” He said a waiver like that didn’t exist. I said huh, that must have been some other maze I went to.
I asked what type of prize I’d get for completing the maze and the owner told me I could have a glass of apple cider. It seemed like kind of a crummy prize. Was it at least spiked? He said no because kids drink the cider too. As if a kid couldn’t appreciate a nice glass of spiked cider.
I was telling this story to my buddy who’s a science man and he said I was out of my mind. He said the way I live life and view the world is crazy. Then he said he wanted to study me for a project he was working on. He wanted to hook me up to a machine and look at my brain chemistry.
I asked, are there prizes if I let you look at my brain? He thought for a second and said he could probably arrange for a few prizes. Will the prizes be spiked, I asked. Or drugged? He said possibly. It looks like I’m going to get to live like a lab rat after all.
