Fancy Pet Hates

I, like many of you, read this week’s Listography incorrectly at first. What, I thought. People are actually confessing to disliking animals! That’s crazy! That’s a Listography after my Fancy heart! I can do that. Then I read some of your posts. I stand corrected. You mean like “pet” as in English for “most” or “favorite.” Well, Fancy here is going with her first reaction. You all know that I hate Nannies who can’t load a fucking dishwasher or finding sand and apple sauce pasted to my pram. I’m gonna toss this one on its head. Here’s Fancy's most Hated Pets.

• Pets with Hair: I was going to say dogs here because there is nothing worse than dressing up to go visit your best friend who you only see once a year if you are lucky and then leaving her house only to find your gorgeous black trousers covered in hair. I go to great lengths to maintain or remove the hair on my own body. I pay ladies to look at my personal bits and keep them well groomed. I don’t want to find anyone else’s hair anywhere near me. Not a little black hair in my duck roll. Not a shred of doggie (of kitty) stuck to my cashmere.

• Ferrets: Guess what? You’re not cool. Oh, I know you think you are because you went all rocker on us and got a ferret. But that’ is so 90’s. Ferrets are dirty and smelly. You realize that most domesticated ferrets have to have their anal scent glands removed before coming into your lovely home. And California and New York City don’t allow them. One more example of how those are two of the more forward-thinking states in the Union.

• Petting Zoo Sheep: The Princess is now old enough to want to go into the petting area at the zoo. Tough Cookie is surprisingly resistant to the whole thing (smart cookie is what you are baby girl!) so she stays out with H. But The Princess wants to get right in there and touch the baby goats. Which is okay because they are smaller than me and I could probably take one on and win. But the sheep, that’s another story. They look at me with their little beady eyes, chewing on their hay and it’s clear to me that there is very little going on behind those glazed over baby blues. But they are BIG, these sheep. I think one of them could knock me over and seriously injure me on its sudden race back to the safety of its pen, startled by something horribly threatening like a sparrow. I can’t trust anything that stupid to not blindly kill me without a second thought. But this is what mothers do, isn’t it. We get over our own fears to make our children happy.

• Llamas: and speaking of the petting zoo, why are the llamas allowed so close to the people? Don’t they know that those big-toothed camel wannabes bite and spit? I’m seriously concerned for the people of Greater London. Those keepers should really put some space between these creatures and the general public. I mean, if I lived in the Andes maybe I’d think differently and have a favorite and well trained little llama friend to carry my belongings up and down the mountain. Or maybe not. I could probably hire a car and driver to do that.

• And finally. My mouse. No, I didn’t say mice, although I don’t like rodents of any kind and can scream like a little girl when I open the rubbish cupboard out on the street and a million little furry things scatter. But I specify: My Mouse. The neighbours are doing construction and its driven a tiny little friend over into my living room. She’s actually kind of cute but I don’t want any mice getting too comfortable over here at the Fancies. And what if she breeds? Horrors! I keep setting out these “no see” quick kill traps but she ignores them. I even laid a trail of seeds right up to the door of the trap and she ate every fucking one and still avoided getting caught. Actually, I take this all back. I like My Fancy mouse. I like her style.