Four-Legged Foes

This post originally appeared in “Adri’s Sanitarium” on June 23, 2008.

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Just sit back and relax and I’ll tell you all about it. Don’t even move a muscle, my friend; I’ll do all the work from here on out.

They say Old Dick Nixon couldn’t coax a dog anywhere within ten feet of where he stood. The mutts just didn’t trust him, had some kind of primal sixth sense that told their tiny, 72-ounce brains to stay the hell away. And Nixon’s handlers, well, they “interviewed” various and assorted dogs to see which one(s) could be tricked with the old “raw meat in the suit pants pocket” gimmick. The “winners” became famous, but at what price?

Yeah, Tricky Dick and me: the both of us, stigmatized by our complete and utter lack of appeal to creatures that eat their own feces. 

You see, animals hate me.

Me, I like animals – all sorts of animals, in fact – but in the end it makes no difference. There’s just no reasoning with the critters, no matter how airtight the argument or how compelling the graph.

Or, to put it another way so my toughest critics might perhaps better understand me: arf arf arf arf arf.

Now, I’ve been around here long enough that I can predict that there are going to be skeptics among you – grizzled, jaded cynics who are going to suggest that it’s all or in part my fault. That I’ve done something to turn the entire freaking animal kingdom against me.  That word of some perceived slight or sin on my part has gotten around – traveled by chirp of beak and whoosh of blowhole from this aquarium to that kennel to this here bird cage – but that it is all, in the end, very much my own doing, and that I’m simply reaping what I’ve sown.

And the truth is, sure, my law firm does high profile lobbying work in favor of the destruction of dogs. Not all dogs, mind you – I mean, c’mon, I’m not a monster – just the cute fluffy ones. The ones that have had it way too easy for way too long.

Then there was the unfortunate incident which occurred in my house around last Christmas in which I fatally shot a fat male housecat with a 22-caliber handgun. I have never addressed it directly in the blog, and honestly, I doubt I ever will. In my own defense, however, I will tell you that the freaky feline had it coming. I shot that cat in self-defense. It was a good kill.

We never had any pets around the house when I was a kid. My parents, I always assumed they only wanted to feed dependants that could understand and appreciate their insults. I’m not complaining or throwing this at you in some kind of half-assed attempt to garner sympathy or make you feel bad about how rough I had it. Don’t cry for me, Multiply. All I’m trying to do is begin to explain my relative lack of comfort when I’m near life forms further down the evolutionary chain.

But there is no real explanation for it. Animals hate me.

My roommate, little Bhoomi Popp Whizz Bang Crackle Click, she moved in this past Spring and brought with her an entire menagerie of tiny hissing things that specialize in despising Yours Truly. To wit: two cats, two rabbits, one Beta fish named Arrington, a Lorax, three hamsters, a Cthulu, one three-toed box turtle, two larval chupacabras, and a very moody ball python. To this, we have recently added roughly 200 Gulf Coast toad tadpoles found in a puddle outside my house.

I’m not even counting the raggy feral cat out back we feed or the family of raccoons that paws its way up to my back door nightly.

And each and every one of them hates me.

Other than the tadpoles, I think the only one of the whole bunch that hasn’t bitten me is the smaller chupacabra, and that’s only because I take great pains to keep the little fucker in its place. Every single time I see it, upon shimmying down my stairs first thing in the morning or arriving home after work, I tell it firmly, “You are funny looking, you have too much facial hair, and none of the boys are ever going to like you.”

Or sometimes, “I saw what you did and you should be completely ashamed of yourself!”

Or once in a long while, just to vary it up, I say, “You are a huge disappointment to Bhoomi and me.”

I mean, I don’t have any kids, and I have to pass on the collective parenting wisdom of the Oopsy family tree somehow, don’t I?

And with the animals, it’s not as though it’s going to harm my reputation. They already hate me.

Sometimes, at that hour when the night is at its darkest and there ain’t even any cars zooming down the queerest of Montrose streets, I can hear Bhoomi’s beasts plotting against me.

“You wrap yourself around her throat to slow her down while I chew her eyes out.”

“Let’s mix poison ivy in with her weed and then sit back and laugh when the insides of her lungs start itching. She’ll be begging us to kill her then.”

“Psst… You there! Whiskers!  I want you humping her bedspread every day when she gets home from work. I don’t care that you’re neutered, start a’humping.”

So sure, animals hate me, but I’m not going to let it get me down. I’ve learned, you can’t trust anything that has reached adulthood and still can’t hold down a steady job to support itself. How many classic works of art have come from the animal kingdom, huh? Ever? And don’t give me that about how there’s some elephant in San Diego who can paint by holding the brush in his trunk, because I’ve seen his work and it’s shit…

As a matter of fact, as long as I’m all revved up and on a roll, I don’t really care if animals do hate me. If they’re so great, why is it the number of humans doubles every decade, while critters are facing the largest mass extinction since the waning days of the dinosaurs?

Maybe animals hate folks like Richard Milhous Nixon and me because we see right through this charade they’ve been foisting off on the rest of humanity for centuries.

Animals. They’re just a bunch of haters.

That’s it, Fido. Just lie there still. I won’t hurt you. That’s it…