You and me baby...

As members of the animal kingdom, we are extremely lucky to be who we are. We can go years without so much as a reminder that, at the end of the day, all we are are animals. (Unless you listen to that creepy Discovery Channel song..."You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals..." That one is always a great reminder.)

But anyways, sometimes it's funny to think about how our lives would be if we all were a bit more animal-like.

When you walk your dog, or bring it to a park, it's always a little bit nerve racking to see how they do with the other dogs. As part-owner of a dog who other small dogs happen to hate, I watch, and worry that Haley is mere seconds away from being attacked. The owners of the dogs that attack (cough cough Trixie the goddamn terrier who attacked Haley at puppy kindergarten) are probably just as worried that their dog may, on a whim, decide to inflict some serious damage.

As human beings, that's never something we have to worry about (unless you raise a serial killer.) When we have kids, we are going to bring them to day care, or preschool, and we are going to watch them to see if they cry, or see how cute they look toddling around with the other kids....we aren't watching them to make sure they don't go straight for little Tommy's jugular even though they haven't so much as sniffed each other yet. Sure, you can be concerned that your kid may be the victim of a bully. But the bully isn't going to try to physically rip your kid's head off.

Another thing to consider is how much easier life is at the top of the food chain.

Life can be really stressful. There are stresses from work, family life, relationships, financial issues etc. Now try to factor in the stress of wondering if you are going to get eaten on any given day.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I could handle that sort of stress. Imagine having to scurry from your office out to your car every day. Or you run out of milk at home and you have to run to the store...HUGE production.

(I imagine this is how mafia members, gang members, people who do bad things for a living, etc. feel on a daily basis--and going out on a limb and guessing that this blog isn't frequented by many criminals--I'm going to say that they kind of asked for that lifestyle. So I withhold my sympathy from them.)

I also sometimes like to use the "we're just animals!" ploy when I think about eating gross food. People judge me because I love Taco Bell. And Taco Bell is kind of a dirty place. But consider what other animals do. They eat animal carcasses. Off of the ground. We're supposedly descendants of apes, right? (all of you scientists are thinking, "welllll...technically...") Tell me that the food they serve apes in the zoo is cleaner than the food they serve me at Taco Bell. I refuse to believe it. I know the meat at fast food places is gross and blah blah blah it's practically dog meat...but honestly...it's just going into my stomach. As far as I'm concerned, my stomach is a gross place anyways. Did you see the Magic School Bus episode where they go inside Arnold's body?? Disgusting. So in my opinion, we don't have to be quite as sanitary as some people think we should be. I'll take a soft taco supreme over a deer carcass covered in wet leaves any day.


"Chew your food you're an animal!!"
-Harry Wormwood, Matilda