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"Why are you able to un-trap things on Shabbos?" Gabriel mused.
Generally actions are forbidden in pairs. Writing and its inverse erasing. Sewing, and its inverse tearing. Knotting and its inverse un-knotting. Trapping - but not un-trapping.
Trapping means that if a deer wanders into your stable, you aren't allowed to close the door on it with a merry cry of "Venison tomorrow, kids!" Domestic dogs are a different story; closing my apartment door isn't trapping Waan, because she'd be miserable if she was shut out. She lives here.
Which means that she wanders around at will. So when this afternoon I heard a scratching, rustling noise coming from the bedroom, I assumed it was Waan engaged in some sort of doggy wickedness, and I hastened to intervene.
Waan was indeed in the bedroom, but the noise was a bird trying to get out through the window screen, flailing around with beak and claws and wings. It'd got in via the ersatz air-conditioner installation and then got confused.
I know a bit about having birds in your room. We used to get them coming in through the roof insulation, or occasionally down the chimneys. "Oh no, yuck, a bird" is an appropriate reaction. "Get rid of it" is another. "Oh hell, it's Shabbat and I can't trap it with a box" is another.
As I watched, Waan stretched up again at this Odd Wiggly Thing (she knows about birds; they're Outside Toys for chasing), and the bird flapped across the room and dive-bombed into the wastepaper basket (which lives on the desk, given Waan's habit of stealing things from it). Thank God, I thought, now I don't have to worry about trapping, if I can get the bin out of the window before the bird gets out of the bin. I nipped the screen out of the window and ploinked the bin onto the fire escape, gingerly twitched the wastepaper aside, and watched the bird flap free. And then replaced the screen, just in case.
This is why anti-trapping is okay on Shabbat. It really, really sucks to have a wild bird trapped in your bedroom. Ruddy things flap about panicking and shitting all over the place; they can deliver quite a nasty jab with their beaks, and they've all got fleas and mites and God knows what else. Longer you mess about trying to get rid of them, the angrier they get. Angry Birds: not a Shabbat thing.
Generally actions are forbidden in pairs. Writing and its inverse erasing. Sewing, and its inverse tearing. Knotting and its inverse un-knotting. Trapping - but not un-trapping.
Trapping means that if a deer wanders into your stable, you aren't allowed to close the door on it with a merry cry of "Venison tomorrow, kids!" Domestic dogs are a different story; closing my apartment door isn't trapping Waan, because she'd be miserable if she was shut out. She lives here.
Which means that she wanders around at will. So when this afternoon I heard a scratching, rustling noise coming from the bedroom, I assumed it was Waan engaged in some sort of doggy wickedness, and I hastened to intervene.
Waan was indeed in the bedroom, but the noise was a bird trying to get out through the window screen, flailing around with beak and claws and wings. It'd got in via the ersatz air-conditioner installation and then got confused.
I know a bit about having birds in your room. We used to get them coming in through the roof insulation, or occasionally down the chimneys. "Oh no, yuck, a bird" is an appropriate reaction. "Get rid of it" is another. "Oh hell, it's Shabbat and I can't trap it with a box" is another.
As I watched, Waan stretched up again at this Odd Wiggly Thing (she knows about birds; they're Outside Toys for chasing), and the bird flapped across the room and dive-bombed into the wastepaper basket (which lives on the desk, given Waan's habit of stealing things from it). Thank God, I thought, now I don't have to worry about trapping, if I can get the bin out of the window before the bird gets out of the bin. I nipped the screen out of the window and ploinked the bin onto the fire escape, gingerly twitched the wastepaper aside, and watched the bird flap free. And then replaced the screen, just in case.
This is why anti-trapping is okay on Shabbat. It really, really sucks to have a wild bird trapped in your bedroom. Ruddy things flap about panicking and shitting all over the place; they can deliver quite a nasty jab with their beaks, and they've all got fleas and mites and God knows what else. Longer you mess about trying to get rid of them, the angrier they get. Angry Birds: not a Shabbat thing.