They say a dog is man’s best friend. Nonsense. Who wants a best friend who shits on your carpet and then bites you?
Cats
are no better. I don’t want to be brought gifts of half digested
rodents. A new car yes; mauled animal corpses no.
Those
seeking intellectual stimulation might consider one of the higher
functioning primates. But beware: befriending an ape who turns out to be
more intelligent than oneself will inevitably lead you to
resentment, bitterness and ultimately murder.
Unfortunately
this principle applies both ways; there’s nothing an ape hates more
than a smart-arse human. So one way or another it’s a relationship
doomed to end in murder. You have been warned.
Ideally
a soul mate should be selected from within one’s own species. However,
if I was compelled to select a companion from the animal kingdom I
would chose one that was kindly, undemanding, emotionally stable and
short-lived. A butterfly would be ideal.
Indeed
I had one such friend a few years ago. Barry was a lovely little fellow
and surprisingly intelligent for an insect. Obviously he couldn’t
operate complex machinery like a fork-lift truck (that would be
ridiculous). But he could count to eleven in French.
Tragically
his life was cut short after he fell in with a mean crowd of monkeys
and was crushed to death under the wheels of fork lift truck driven by a
jealous chimpanzee who struggled to count to nine in Spanish.
See what I mean about primates?
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