Bite Me

I don't like animals.

Apparently this is a character trait akin to chronic halitosis. Shock, disgust, silence are all immediate and involuntary responses to my nervous confession. "Actually.....I just don't like animals. They're just.....not my thing....." "Oh, uh, um, haha." It's almost like I've just confessed to robbing my grandmother. Nobody quite knows what to say.

What's the big deal, people?! You don't wrinkle your nose when I say I HATE olives.

I didn't always realize that I had a horrible flaw in my innate character. In fact, I never noticed that my chronic distrust of all things feathered and furred was so appalling.

It was almost a year ago when I first came to the realization that I was ingrained with an incomprehensible personality fault. I had lived in my apartment for a few weeks, and it was cold outside. Because I live in Idaho and January in Idaho is ridiculous. So it was cold, and what I didn't know was that girls in my complex took pity on the poor, freezing stray cats by feeding them tuna fish and milk and inviting them into their apartments.

One evening I walked out of my bedroom and watched a black cat waltz through our open door into our kitchen!!! I responded from instinct. "AAAH!! WHO LET THE CAT IN!?!" I sprang at the cat, grabbed it around the middle, and tossed it out the still-open door, while my roommates screamed, "Eeeee!! Wait! That's Guido!!"

I shut the door. I turned around. My roommates stood in the kitchen, mouths open, shocked. They stared at me like I just slapped a baby.

"That's Guido...." said one of my roommates. "Who is Guido?" I said. "Wait, the cat has a name? It's a stray cat."

Annnnd, cue the awkward silence and forced laughs.

That's when I realized that not being an animal person is not exactly a plus in most social situations.

So I don't like animals. Bite me.