Posts Tagged ‘Animals’

Hands up if you like wasps? Anyone? I thought as much…

I hate them. I mean I don’t purposely go out of my way to hurt them, but I hate the way they buzz around your head, they way they buzz around your food, and why they insist on hanging around the same place – which is invariably where you need to stand/sit/walk/run/whatever.

The place I work has a wasp problem. A massive one. They never seem too stop coming out of the walls, and they always go for me. They should be dying by now, but they continue to haunt me. I read somewhere once that wasps are more likely to sting you when they are close to death…comforting.

I’m not really afraid of the creatures themselves, they just upset my chi. It’s the fear of the unknown – I’ve never been stung by a wasp/bee/hornet or any other bug. Now I’m not afraid of needles, I’ve got a ton of tattoos, but I have this insane irrational fear of what might happen if one of the little critters gets me.

This got me thinking about what exactly I am scared off. Well I’ll tell you. Sharks. Sharks suck. I really don’t enjoy the fact they have a lot more teeth than the majority of creatures. Ever since I saw Jaws when I was a kid, I was literally afraid to go in to any water, which included swimming, having a bath, and at one point mildly freaking out about putting my hands in a sink full of soapy water.

Have I ever swam near a shark? Have I hell – you won’t get me in the sea. It just won’t happen. I’ve got over the having a bath, and swimming thing, but I still have a check, and can easily freak myself out, and panic. It’s bizarre. I know that Jaws was fake, but I still can’t get it out of my head. It’s a stupid fear. But it’s shared by many people, and it even has a name: galeophobia.

I think fear is with you forever. Many scientists and psychologists believe that if you face your fears, you can conquer them, but I’m afraid to say I ever came face to face with a shark, I would die of fright before it had a chance to bite me. I hate pictures of sharks, movies with sharks – hell even the astonishing Plant Earth series by the BBC had me hiding behind my couch.

Apart from that scary fish, I’m not really scared of much else. Sure I’ll jump out my skin when a spider falls on to my lap, or jump out my skin when I hear a loud bang, but that’s a different type of fear, it’s not the kind of fear that creeps under your flesh and eats away at your courage.

So what scares you?

One thing I love is dogs. The only problem is I can’t play with them or even pat them on the head, because I’m sneezing so hard.

I’ve been allergic to dogs for as long as I can remember, but its just not mans best friend I get ill from. If a cat comes within about 5 feet of me, I’ll sneeze, if I sleep on a feather pillow – something that bed and breakfast’s around the world always insist on using – I’m like death warmed up by the morning.

My eyes go puffy, my throat swells, my nose starts steaming, and I basically can’t breathe. It’s a pretty big downer. I’ve tried a million things to try to stop me feeling rubbish near animals of any type, practically every anti-histamine on the market, a bunch of so-called herbal remedies, along with a various selection of vapour things that apparently help you breathe more easily.

It sucks for first impressions too. I remember meeting my fiancé’s parents for the first time, and politely asking them to remove their dogs from the room – I was sneezing my head off after about five minutes of trying not to think about the little furballs. I must have looked brilliant: “hi I’m the guy that’s dating your daughter *sneeze, cough splutter*. Honestly, I’m really cool in real life”.

I reckon I’ve narrowed it down to three suitable solutions…

1. Never look at, touch or walk past a furry creature of death ever again.
2. Jam two blocks of cotton wool up each nostril, and wear a mouth mask.
3. Carry a small set of clippers around to shave off any animal’s hair that causes me to sneeze.

Now, the way I see it is that realistically, option number one, is going to be impossible – everyone seems to love animals – I think even my parents would sooner give up me than their two mutts.

Option three would land me in a whole lot of trouble – not only with the RSPCA – but with owners of their now aerodynamic moggy, so it looks like I’m going to be left with option number two, otherwise I’ll have to go on looking like the elephant man for a week after a visit to my fiancé’s parents house.

Does anyone else suffer from animals that people insist on having around? Or do you know of anything that can actually stop me feeling like cr#p for a week after being near an animal? I’m genuinely asking for help…

I visited animal prison yesterday, otherwise known as the local Zoo. I love seeing animal’s, they are often fluffy, toothy, trunky, smelly, funny… but after a short time I started to feel really sad. It’s the monkeys and apes. These awesome creatures share 99 percent of our genetic make-up, yet they are the ones locked in cages. I swore that they were looking at all the buck-toothed passers-by gawping at them, and thinking to themselves “why me”.

No I know that they are there for a reason. They are bred in captivity to preserve the species, etc etc, but you can’t help but feel terrible.

I look at it this way: As a nation, we pretty much suck. Knife crime is through the roof, robberies are common place, the police are useless, the courts are pathetic, the government seems to brush over areas of the country with a magic brush that hides over this nations pathetic excuses for human beings, yet we hold creatures that probably have more intelligence in their left nostril than the majority of the dregs that pollute of towns, shopping centres and public parks in tiny little enclosures, that doesn’t exactly look very fun.

Now I’m not having a go at the zoo keepers, or zoo’s for that matter. Do I think more could be done to make these animals lives more bearable? Yes I do, but I understand that the government can’t afford to subsidise the zoo’s, and other animal sanctuaries, as they are too busy subsidising Vicky Pollard look-a-like’s with seven kids called; Briteni, Kristina, Briteni 2, Beckum, Roonney, Cher and Crystal Dimonnd the third.

Perhaps I’m being shallow-minded? Perhaps as a nation we are secretly terrified of a monkey rebellion, and this is a government’s way of quelling any thoughts of a primate takeover.

Anyways, I saw some cool animals, tortoises, giraffes, and I was about five feet away from 4 African elephants – amazing. That’s the great side of zoo’s. In our world these creatures can’t walk around freely without fear of some poacher hunting them down, so at least they are safe. I just wish that the government would do something to make their stay a little bit more comfortable.