Fatal Attraction

The View From My Backdoor.

While I tap, tap, tap away on my keyboard, making up stories, I keep the television blaring. That’s how I did my homework and made straight A’s throughout my academic career. It’s a career that has spanned decades and is still spanning. I don’t want to talk about it.

I often watch educational or discovery related channels while I tap, tap, tap. 

Today was no different. I finished another novel and watched a discovery style show called “Fatal Attraction.” The attraction that proved fatal was between humans and the animals they adore.

One lady fed WILD bears off the back of her porch. She tossed apple chunks at them. She gave them cutesy names. She built a fence to keep them from clawing her house down. They ate her face off.

Another woman kept pet tigers. She gave them names. She fed them road kill she scooped off the highway. She spoke of them fondly. She thought of them as children. They ate her face off.

And still another woman kept hybrid wolves. She treated them like family. She gave them a kiddy pool full of fun water. She gave them wolfish names. They ate her face off.

It freaked me out, because—as I type this—my garage is full, full of feral cats, and I feed them, because if I don’t feed them they will eat my chickens, rabbits, song birds, and dog. I’m afraid not to feed them. But after watching “Fatal Attraction” I’m pretty sure they’re going to gang up, drag me off, and stuff me under Mr. Abe’s garden shed. Where they will eat my face off.

What I have going for me:

I refuse to name them.

I never talk of them fondly.

I do not believe they have any human affection for me. 

When they look at me it is not with love. They are measuring the distance between my hairline and my scalp and calculating the number of cat fangs required to hamstring me on my way to the barn.

You know what I think? I think it’s time for another cat roundup. Or as the grandchildren ask, “Hey! Are we too late, for the cat roundup?”

Here’s what I think. Animals are not people or babies or surrogate boyfriends. They are animals. They are not people in fur coats. So stop dropping off your “babies” in front of my house instead of taking them to the animal control up the road, because it’s going to end badly for someone or some thing or everyone.

PS: All the humans died in the above fatal attraction examples, so did all the animals.

Linda (Butterfly Net) Zern