thoughts, words, deeds

d. none of the above

Talk Tuesday! What would you prefer...talking pets, or humans with heightened animal sensibilities?

I have no dependence on the interest of a conversation with animals. Right now, when I meet a cat or a dog, I can pretty much tell what he or she wants to say, and it always feels like a series of orders (or pleas) that I may or may not have time for. I keep on thinking about the seagulls on Finding Nemo—and wonder if a pet would have anything more to say.

As you may (or may not) be able to tell, I don’t have a pet. We had cats and a dog when I was young, but they gradually faded away. As my mother puts it, she had six kids, she couldn’t afford a pet, too. Now that I’m grown, I still have no real desire for a pet (although I don’t know if that would change if I lived alone). I’m one of those people who gets up in the morning and starts doing something like reading or writing, and all of a sudden, it’s dinner time and I’m starving because I haven’t eaten all day. That kind of person shouldn’t afflict a pet with her version of care.

So, I’m not really interested in pets, talking or otherwise. Which leaves me with the other option. Humans with heightened animal sensibilities. While I’m not completely sure what that means (I don’t want a nose like a dogs, for example. I have a hard enough time dealing with bad smells) I hesitate there as well. It strikes me that any heightened sense is going to come with major drawbacks. A lot of animals live in the absolute outside edge of their skins, and humans can’t do that and maintain vestiges of civilization. So, I’m kind of not terribly wanting that, either.

Which probably sounds boring. It’s like when someone asks me where I would go if I could travel in time, and I say, I don’t want to because the time periods I’m most interested in were all before the discovery and manufacture of insulin for human consumption (injection?) and I’d be dead in less than a week. Painfully. And then, the person asking the question says, but I didn’t mean it like that! and the conversation goes off into the realm of why do I have to be such a spoilsport.

But I don’t want to live with the drawbacks of having heightened animal sensibilities, and I have no desire to have conversations with pets . . . so. There we are.