Waging War Against Animals in New York

Where my hatred for animals originated

I wasn’t born an animal hater, but one particular event did scar me for life early on. At the petting zoo with my favorite stuffed “animal,” Ernie from Sesame Street, in tow, I experienced one of the most frightening moments of my young life:
A goat, or was it a lamb (tragedies often result in memory loss) TOOK my Ernie doll right out of my hands with its mouth and ran around with him. Luckily, my mom rescued him, but from that point on, we were enemies. You take my baby…well…I’ll eat yours in stews and kabobs for years to come. Take that!

My Take on Pets

=Hate them. So, let me get this straight, I work all day, you sleep all day, I come home and feed you, you sleep some more, I’m responsible for cleaning up after your digestive waste, I hypothetically may not have health insurance but will take you to the vet when you get kitty cancer and every time I want to go on vacation or sleep somewhere else, I have to move mountains to get someone to take responsibility for all of the above? Right, it makes a lot of sense why so many people have pets.
Don’t get my started about “companionship.” That’s what FRIENDS are for. And significant others and stuffed animals and Chris Farley movies and pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Try convincing me that petting a cat on the couch is superior to watching Tommy Boy with your boyfriend and eating Chubby Hubby. 

*Sometimes* Lying DOES Get you into Trouble

A lot of the time, dishonestly gets you what you want. Other times, it backfires. Completely. In college, I was asked by a philosophy professor to house-sit, babysit and pet-sit over spring break. Money, a car for the week, a cabin in the woods! There was no way I was saying no. Pets? How bad could that be? When I went to interview for this “job,” I distinctly remember the moment when I lied.
Him: Do you like pets?Me: I love pets, love them. 
“Pets” turned out to be 2 dogs and 3 cats. Ugh, but doable. Oh right, but then one of the dogs had to get all pregnant unbeknownst to me and have 6 PUPPIES early, just in time for my week there. Great. Puppies. Eleven animals. By the end of the week, I wasn’t walking the dogs (i.e. their intestinal tracts were probably hurting) and stopped putting food out. Poor things had to wait till the kids got home. 
I found myself having staring contests with the dogs and thinking, “I know you want to go outside, but I don’t want to. It’s cold out, you take forever to find a spot to expel yourself, and why the heck do I have to take care of you? Take care of yourself—it’s what I do EVERYDAY!”

But, but! Animals are part of the wild and co-inhabitants of planet earth!

Yeah, I don’t care. I’d say that animals belong in zoos, but zoos are smelly and I was dragged to them 837 too many times as a kid in the scorching heat and the best part, the train, was always closed and ruined the excursion. So, they don’t belong in zoos, but they definitely don’t belong in apartments no matter how “natural” it may seem. I’m down with the museum display up above (PETA, don’t come after me, please!) Behind glass, not smelly, and looking as idle as they usually do in zoos. 

Unwanted house guests that plague New York apartments

1. roaches and water bugs-they scurry and scare the crap out of me. Luckily, I am determined to kill them badly enough that I will wait for hours with a sturdy shoe in hand.
2. mice-I have always worn the pants in the house, which means I am responsible for all mice deaths and disposals. Once upon a time, one jumped out of a cereal box and brushed my face. Need I say more? I have gone to Duane Reade and bought EVERY SINGLE KIND of mouse trap there is. I look very scary when I do this, dumping everything onto the counter with an evil twinkle in my eye.  
3. bed bugs-fortunately, I have no experience with them 
4. centipedes/“thousand leggers”-growing up, we called these “Italian bugs” because in Pittsburgh, they seemed to only exist in the Italian neighborhoods, one of which was where we lived. (And hey, I can call them that because I AM Italian…did the blond hair and blue eyes give it away?)
5. Squirrels-squirrels? house guests? Oh, keep reading, my friends… 

My War with the Squirrel

At a very young age, I watched my mom scare off the squirrels in the backyard because they stole the birdfeeder food (dude, every animal for himself!) And by “scare,” I mean scream and flail her arms, which I can assure you is a pretty scary sight indeed. You’d think that living in New York would do away with the whole waging war against squirrel thing, save for the occasional acorn falling onto your head from above (you can bet I retaliated once or twice by throwing them back! OMG I need help!). 
Not so, not so. I live in a part of Brooklyn where the backyards are huge and the trees are taller than the buildings. Yay nature! But remember that nature=squirrels. Or in my case, one particular squirrel that liked to CHEW through my window screens and steal my baking chocolate! I’ll never forget that day, coming home to that very sight. This. Means. War!

*Squirrel-Combat Consequences*

Technically, the squirrel won. He tore through all of my screens, ate my food and trampled on all my plants. He also pissed me off to no end. I admitted defeat: I got an air conditioner! Windows closed, problem solved!