When animals are awesome

Recently, I was shocked to discover that people are not the only creatures inhabiting the planet. There are, in fact, quite a few of these so-called "animals" that are fortunate enough to have us above them on the food chain. The only animal above us on the food chain is the toucan, for reasons that I won't explain because they don't exist.

If we look at the word animal, we can, after a short trip to dictionary.com, determine that its root is "anima", or in English, "animated." This is why most cartoons feature animals; because it requires less work from the artist.

There are two schools of thought about the place of animals on Earth. In one camp, made presumably entirely out of buffalo skins, the people feel that animals are placed here by God to feed and clothe us, and to provide us moving targets to shoot large-caliber weapons at. On the other hand, there are a bunch of damned hippies who feel that animals have souls and that by harming them, we are harming, like, our soul siblings, man. Both of these people are completely insane. It's quite logical and obvious that animals are mechanical, programmed to repeat the same actions over and over again.

You may think I'm wrong, but ask yourself- why do the swallows always return to Capistrano, or squirrels harvest nuts for the winter, or ants systematically invade and destroy everything you've ever loved? Some call it instinct, I call it a logic loop. It's the same reason that a babboon will cradle a child when the stupid kid is screwing around and dancing in front of the goddamned ape exhibit even though you told him a million goddamned times to cut it out. If the babboon realized that it was a human child, particularly a no-good brat that your stupid brother-in-law raised, it would be far more likely to feed on the kid's sweet, sweet flesh. However, because the babboon is just following it's programming, it does what it has been commanded to do, and the local news has a nice story to put in the "Wacky News" section.

Murderous robots or not, there is one aspect of animals that kicks butt: animal fights. Documentarians have known for years that there's nothing greater than watching a Bengal tiger tussle with a rhino, or a bear on a log fighting off a shark. Animals, unlike humans, have secret weapons. Think that spider is gonna totally destroy the other small bug? Oh no, it's a Mexican burrito moth, which spits fiery tar from it's eyes. Totally awesome, and you can bet the spider wasn't expecting it.

And yet, despite their claws, teeth and poison-laced tentacles, man somehow rose to become king of the world. Some have surmised that it is because of our large, meaty brain that we were able to outsmart the animals. If true, it's not that impressive. What condor do you know that can do algebra? Do you know of a vole that can write like Keats? It's like if some bully picked only on quadrapalegics who were confined to wheelchairs with only one wheel, and also had bad vision. Oh, you're a big man, humankind. Why don't you go wrestle that bear and see what happens?

That's what I thought, wuss.