Flipper-mania.

I have yet to meet anyone on this planet who doesn't love dolphins.

I mean, it's not like I go around asking people whether they like dolphins or not. That's just weird... almost as weird as bloggging about this topic --- but I'd wager that for the world's animals, dolphins are probably universally loved. The most loved. Humankind's favorite sea-mammal... ooh... but seals and sea lions... everyone loves them too...

Regardless... I'm making a point about dolphins here. I need to focus.

I mean, what's not to love? They always look like they're smiling, they swim around jumping and doing tricks... they click and nod their heads and eat fish out of buckets and touch balls with their noses (heyyy!) and you can put suction cups over their eyes and they can still hunt down a fish and eat it...

I mean they're like wundermammals. And they're so cute. And they're mammals but they live under water... how trippy is THAT?! We like... somewhere along the line, split off on the same evolutionary line...

Right?!

I just blew your mind. I'll let that sink in.

Okay. That wasn't that deep, so you didn't need too much time there.

Anyway, the point I'm making here is you never say, "Oh, I saw these dolphins in the water the other day," (well, you might well say that, but it's really how the conversation goes here that I'm saying never happens) and then the person you're talking to says, "Fuck dolphins. I hate them... fuck dolphins in the blowhole (heyyy!)"

That never happens for a variety of reasons, but the point is it never happens.

If you say "I saw some dolphins," there's always some question that follows and, normally an affirmation of the positiveness of that statement, like, "Really? That's awesome. Where?" Or, if you're me, you jump up and down on your toes, squealing and clapping and throwing fistfulls of confetti into the air singing, "LAUREN SAW SOME DOLPHINS! LAUREN SAW SOME DOLPHINS! LAUREN SAT AT HOME ON CHRISTMAS EVE AND BAKED COOKIES!"

And then, having insulted Lauren for making Slice n' Bakes (you weren't even actually baking cookies, Lauren.) you suddenly tire of your present company, and kick the guest who brought up the dolphins out of your house, and resume knitting and enjoying a glass of warm milk with your cat, Mrs. Willingham on your lap.

(Did you like your shout-out?)

The point I'm trying to make, however circumlocuitously, is that people like dolphins, way more than, say, people like rats, people like snakes, people like jellyfish, hell, even more than people like dogs.

I hate dogs. But I try to mask my hatred beneath a thin veneer of distain.

Dolphins, however... why can't I have one of those as a pet?