STOP STARING

One person I know has a pet snake. For him, given his access to edible mice, it's probably an ideal situation. Edible mice are those rodents specifically sold as reptile food. In case you were wondering, my sympathies are entirely with the small furry beasties. While I like snakes and other squamates, their capacity for emotional response is limited.

They don't even grunt, dammit.

Many years ago I woke up after a new years eve party with a large iguana on my chest, in my sweater. It decided in the middle of the night that I was significantly better than an electric rock, and had moved on in.
It would be a slight exaggeration to say that we bonded.
It just could not back out, because of its spines.
Nor move forward; my chin was in the way.

It just lay there, placidly blowing into my face.
Lizard breath. An herbivorous beast.
Thank goodness for that.
No digested rat.


"A relationship between a cat and a human can involve mutual attraction, personality compatibility, ease of interaction, play, affection and social support"

[Source: Cats bond with women -- and not just for food - NBC News.]


Other than it's fondness for the body temperature of the sleeping Dutchman, the iguana didn't have much personality.



While I was still living in a hellhole burb on the other side of San Francisco Bay (Berkeley), I had a cat that was always overjoyed to see me. She was a very lovable creature when asleep, but a veritable Hound of the Basker-villes among felines when awake. It was the only creature I ever had in my dwelling who could climb walls -- other than the squirrel who moved in when I was still in the Netherlands -- and it did so by sheer energy and insane determination. Three quarters of the way up it would loose its grip and fall, then whirl about the room bouncing off the furniture and the occupant.
As I said, lovable when at rest.
A terror otherwise.


Animals always take advantage of me. They recognize me as harmless and infinitely patient, tolerant of a very wide spectrum of opportunistic behaviour. Especially if they are small, cute, and cuddly. The iguana probably believed itself such, though, being a cold-blooded reptile, it may not have understood what "cute and cuddly" actually meant.

This explains why I will NEVER visit the desert or the tropical rainforests of Central America: scorpions and tarantulas. I can just imagine their heartbreak at being told that they are NOT cuddly. Or cute.
Beady arthropod eyes staring at me with resentment.
Sad, disillusioned, and hurt.
Unblinking.


I am at times a reserved creature, and find it hard to look directly at my interlocutors. It's an Asperger thing. I often have to check myself, realizing that I'm instinctively gazing down or sideways, which most people think of as shifty when they finally notice it. I'm certain that my newfound poisonous multi-legged friends would take it amiss.

Given their single-focus, they couldn't help but noticing.

Cats, raccoons, and squirrels wouldn't mind.
Too busy ripping the place apart.
Not poisonous, too.

As long as there were plenty of food and things to bounce off of, these small hyperactive furballs would consider that all the requirements of personal compatibility, ease of interaction, play, affection, and social support, where being met.


With humans, I'll just try to convince them that I am not a lizard or a newt. I'll repeat " I am human, just like the rest of you" with conviction.
Avoiding any sudden tongue movements.



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