Eventually all of the household pets will make their way into an angry Facebook rant. The hampsters have fallen from "highly obnoxious" to "mildly unpleasant". Even Mango, since she saved me from certain death at the hands- er, paws- of a local black bear has become more tolerable. (Really, if I wanted to run with the wildlife I would join the high school boy's track team.) Today, however, the angry eye has fallen upon the last remaining furry "friend", Tika. (Imagine said 'angry eye' as resembling something like the eye of Mordor, peering from behind the bamboo curtains of a bedroom window.)
Before I continue, you should know that there are multiple levels of anger in everyone's personality. There is:
Annoyance- characterized by grimacing/mumbling, such as when someone other than yourself ate the last piece of pie.
Irritation- characterized by much whining, such as an outdoor homework assignment on a rainy day.
Mild displeasure- characterized by glaring/complaining, such as when you are up to your elbows filleting a fish, and your nose itches.
More mediumish displeasure- characterized by muttered swearings, such as when one's hairtie breaks when one is climbing up a cliff in 90 degree weather.
Anger- characterized by throwing non-life threatening items (eg: mashed potatoes or silly putty) at the offender, and yelling loudly. May be incurred by such an incident as little brothers using your womanly undergarments to to tie up captured indians.
And the most violent of all...
Intoxicating rage- characterized by the impulse to skin and roast over an open spit the object which is making you angry. Usually reserved for the event of terrorist attacks, and barking dogs at ungodly hours. Other symptoms of such rage may include spontaneous literary ranting.
So, dear reader, after I narrate my morning, I will grant you exactly one guess as to whether I was grimacing, or reaching for a battle axe. Five days a week, I awaken at 4:15 am, in order to begin work at 5. Two days out of the week I get to sleep until 7:30. And believe me, that extra three hours and fifteen minutes of sleep is like Christmas. Today, my last day of partial rest before the holocaust of pre-morning rising, at exactly 6am, both dogs erupt into such racket that naturally I assumed that there was a T-rex on the loose or a horde of marauding vikings. At the very least, a rabid squirrel. Of course, when I groggily peered from the window, not yet with the angry eye, I saw nothing, so it was most likely a bear, which is therefore justifiable barking. 5 minutes later, my mental arrived at the more mediumish displeasure stage, and I screamed a rather unpolite request for immediate silence through the window. Mango laid down immediately.
Let me skip ahead an hour and let you know that there is a stage past intoxicating rage. At that point, a degree of despair occurs which calls for desperate measures. Tika, it turns out, it impervious to all manners of sailor-jargon, threats of sudden death, threats of slow death, and threats of being mailed express to the Siberian Tiger exhibit donation section of the Alaska Zoo. Believe me, I blew right on through the intoxicated rage level; I just wanted to sleep. I propose a vote as to whether to exchange this specimen of "man's best friend" in for a more tolerable companion, such as a beta fish. Because at 7:30 I arose from where I had laid down an hour before, in a last hope attempt at rest, the only place in the house where the incessant alerting of non-existant dangers was drowned out. When was the last time your best friend made you sleep next to the fridge?
