New meaning

I'm watching some Castle right now (decent show, quite goofy), and in one particular episode, the suspects are animal rights activists.  It's said that the worst thing they've done is break into a lab and free a bunch of mice.  It's said as if it's really not a terrible thing.

Weirdly enough, I haven't heard any references to breaking into labs and freeing animals in a while, maybe since I started working in the lab last year.  And now, all I can think of is that if some asshole were to free the mice in our animal facility, it would be an institute-wide crisis.  We'd lose months of work, in addition to a loooot of money.  I mean, you'd have to pay for new mice, and for the facility to be cleaned (we've got rules to keep the rooms very clean, rules that activists would probably break).  And then there's the fact that some of the mice are very, very special knock-outs or isoform mice that are rare and pricey.

So next time you hear about activists freeing animals from labs, whether the references are fictional or real, FEEL BAD for the researchers!  Seriously.