Friday, May 29, 2009

Unicorns

So while I sit and set traps and all that fun stuff, I do a lot of thinking. Bear in mind that in the course of about 4 hours I may catch two or three lizards, and as I have the routine of retrieving it, taking a blood sample, making notes, putting lizard in a bag under a tree and resetting traps down to about 4 minutes, there's a lot of time inbetween for random thought. So today, instead of my usual diatribe about why thorn trees are out to get me (they are) and ticks have some mystical radar for me (they do) and the rocks only fall when I've been standing on them for 10 minutes and am starting to relax (they do), i thought I'd let you guys in on some of what I was thinking today. Today was a good day, with amazingl little soul-searching introspection or rehashing past conversations while mentally slapping myself for my stupidity, so I figured it's as good a time as any!




This is my first embed, I hope it works! Anyway I had this song stuck in my head today (it's a good song, despite the weirdness of the video!) and I got to thinking about Unicorns. The line stuck in my head was the "We're the Unicorns, we're more than horses!" and I started wondering about why exactly that is.

Almost every girl I know had posters of dolphins, horses, unicorns and (often) cats, right next to the Backstreet Boys or *N Sync (depending on which side you supported) on her wall. Bear in mind I was a teenager in the late 90's and it was cool then.

I have long since given up trying to understand the appeal of dolphins, they're ok, but really? Give me a likkewaan or a cuttlefish or a capybara anyday! But what the heck is the appeal of unicorns?

Horses I get. They kind of scare me, and as far as I know, besides the classic being dragged around by a trainer who is holding the ropes I don't think I've ever ridden a horse. But I love the idea of having the freedom to go just about anywhere without your legs getting tired, letting your transport feed itself and the general riding into the sunset thing. It's cool. The whole along a beach thing, not so much, but that's just me.

So you take a horse, which is useful, and has big eyes and therefore humans love them, and give it a horn and mystical powers? WTF? I mean really, who wants to hug a rhino?* I mean surely, taking something that's really amazing and useful and as close to man's best friend as his dog will allow, and putting something sharp and dangerous on it? And, if you take the magical powers out of the equation, all you've got is a kind of sheepish looking horse that looks like it's been the victim of a nasty prank.

On the other hand, there's always Charlie!



So do you guys like unicorns? Care to explain the point of the whole idea to me (no pun intended, really!)

*Not counting that baby rhino on the documentary who was wearing socks because his feet were cold and it was really incredibly adorable.

2 comments:

Kath Lockett said...

I must have been the only girl who didn't have posters of unicorns or horses or rainbows in her bedroom. Just abba.

EEbEE said...

backstreetboys!

HAHAHAAAAA!

I'd never have guessed Helen. never thought of you as a backstreetboys girl.

(then again in all fairness, i liked ace of base...shhhh!)