Culture

Don’t Make Me Choose Between Cats And Dogs You Absolute Monsters

Why aren’t we asking “Are you a moose person or a marmoset person?”

by Rebecca Shaw  22 November 2018
Cat Or Dog Person

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Welcome to Junkee’s most pure column: Heartfelt Rants About Extremely Petty Gripes, where very funny people get mildly peeved about something stupid, such as the idea of being a cat or a dog person.

When I was asked to write about something that annoys me, even though it absolutely does not matter in the big scheme of things, my concern was that I wouldn’t be able to choose just one.

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I envisioned a man in a HAZMAT suit sorting through the future ruins of Melbourne, holding up a long scroll of my complaints to show the others. “I’ve found the ramblings of a madwoman,” he would say. “Maybe this will tell us something.”

But sadly, all it will tell them is that I am a cranky woman in her 30s with lots of opinions and a severe case of misophonia.

If you haven’t heard of it, misophonia is sensitivity to certain sounds or movements that can cause distress, or in my case, a burning hot rage that drives me from rooms I am in, and a normal mental health state.

There is a long range of petty grievances based on misophonia that I could have written about.

People sniffing, typing too loud, swallowing, clicking pens, scraping plates with cutlery, and sometimes breathing. Even though these do cause me a lot of annoyance, they were not suitable for this article, because I realise those are my issue. Nobody is (usually) doing anything rude, or wrong, and I don’t think it would be fair to write a screed about people for the crime of “existing.”

Yes, I am a hero.

So, after dismissing misophonia-related content, I moved to the next highest grievance on my list: The fact that the amazing movie Sister Act 2 is on 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, a different homosexual, up to the task, has already written about this absolute travesty of justice.

So then, I landed on something else high on my list. My petty grievance is this: the insistence of society that you must declare you are either a “cat person” or a “dog person.”

Are You A Cat Person Or A Dog Person?

This question, which will be posited to you many times throughout your life, by friends and dating profiles alike, is quite simply deranged. And I will not abide it. Absolutely not.

I will not, cannot, and shall not participate in this short-sighted and binary way of looking at things.

Why have we, as a society, decided that this is an acceptable question? If you happen to like one or the other better, fine. If you are allergic to cats, or were bitten by a dog once, of course that will influence your preferences. If you happen to have one at home and not the other, because of your disgusting pet-free lifestyles, fine.

But what kind of sick and twisted world are we tolerating when I, as a person who loves dogs and cats both so much, am forced to play favourites? How can I choose between a cat’s soft, warm and purring body atop my tummy, and a dog’s loyalty and love, lying at my feet?

They both provide different things to us blob monsters (what I assume their nickname is for humans), and they should both be lauded.

I will NOT choose. I will NOT do it, and I don’t care what happens to me.

If I die because the government has sent out a hitman to kill me because I am speaking too much dangerous truth, it will have been worth it, in order to defend our beautiful fuzzy friends.

Liking Cats Or Dogs Means Nothing Except That You Like Cats Or Dogs OK?

How has the answer to this dumb question even become some sort of indication of a person’s personality?

Oh you prefer cats to dogs? It must mean you’re a homebody! Oh you love dogs? You must be an extrovert. What about the fact that cats can be left to their own devices much more than dogs when you go out?

What about greyhound owners, the lazy cat-dogs of the dog-dog world?

Your arguments make no sense, you idiot (I am speaking here to a hypothetical idiot person who is arguing with me).

Even if you look past the reasoning that it is very possible, and in fact, wonderful, to love both cats and dogs, the fact that these two animals have been pitted against each other in the first place is so pointlessly arbitrary.

Why don’t we force people to admit they are guinea pig people instead of parrot people? Why aren’t we asking “Are you a moose person or a marmoset person?” All of it is meaningless, except for one thing: loving both cats and dogs.

However, I need to be honest.

I have been speaking my complete truth to you today, but as a complicated and open-minded human, I know that things can change. And I know there is one thing in particular that may change my mind about all this.

There is something that may cause me to declare that I am now only a cat person.

And that is: if people keep calling dogs the words “doggos” and “puppers.” I can’t guarantee things won’t change. I can only read the phrase “heckin’ good doggo” a certain number of times before something will snap, and I will switch to hating dogs, like a person who wakes up from a coma speaking a different language.

But until that day, let’s destroy this absurd binary, and let everyone love equally.

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Rebecca Shaw is the co-host of the very regular comedy podcast Bring A Plate. She tweets @brocklesnitch.