# Just a little rant :))



## ChloeJ (Sep 27, 2017)

This happened a while ago, but it still ticks me off. When my family came over for Easter, I had to deal with some rudeness thanks to the fact that I own rats. My dad and I were having a discussion about the care of my rats, and my grandpa butts in and says, "I should put those rats in a trap and throw it in the garbage." I remained calm and just said, "I find that very disrespectful. I work hard to give those rats a good life and you just threatened to end them." My grandpa goes, "No, it wasn't disrespectful. Rats are rodents and all of them end up in traps." I go, "My rats are fully domesticated. They're welcome in this house." My uncle gets himself in the conversation with an angry tone like he's looking for a fight. "Well, if we aren't fond of your rats, we can say 'ew'. It's like if you don't like broccoli and you say 'ew' when someone mentions it." Obviously, I was offended that he would just bring himself into our conversation and actually yell at me when I'm not his child. He was yelling, too. A very loud, demeaning tone as if to provoke me further. I said, "My rats are not food. That comparison means nothing. Caring for this rats is my only hobby -- if someone cooked you a dish (if we're continuing with this food metaphor), you would most likely pretend to like it to prevent hurting their feelings. Why can't it be that way with my living rats?" Then, my dad told us to change the topic and I ran up to my room because I couldn't deal with it anymore.
He's so disrespectful. No matter how much he loves me, he has no right to disrespect what I'm interested in and constantly offend me. Can he not learn to just accept the fact that I own a species of animal that he's afraid of? It's not like he even has to be in the same room as them ever, so I don't know why he makes it such a huge deal. My parents said I should've let it go, but my uncle should not have raised his voice at a child that wasn't his own in a house that he didn't live in. He played no part in raising me and does not have that sort of authority over me. Still, I hate how my family sided with my grandpa. I remained calm during the entire argument and made good points. Avoiding conflict gets absolutely nothing resolved -- letting him get away with that remark would allow him to say something similar in the future with no consequence.


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## Coffeebean (Jan 6, 2017)

People can just be very ignorant. I can understand with some people since some people have truly had some serious issues with wild rats in their houses, and before I ever tried to learn about rats as pets I too had the same kind of negative view of them. My partner's uncle likes to joke how we need a cat to get rid of all our rats in our house. Of course, my partner always helps me relax and not come after him with some hot words, lol. 

Over time the edge wore off for me and while it still annoys me to a degree and I do get an urge to educate these kinds of people, nowadays I am able to just roll my eyes and disregard their opinion. There are just so many people out there who love to joke about 'killing vermin' or feeding mine or someone else's rat to their snake, and possessing very little knowledge about them that I would grind my teeth to nubs if I let them get to me any more. I'm sorry your grandpa was cruel about your well-loved pets. It helps to remember that there are so many of us who LOVE rats because we know about them, and rats are becoming more and more popular all the time. It is their loss that they don't get the same joyful experience that we do.


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## Fu-Inle (Jan 22, 2015)

Even though some people deal with wild rats I still do not understand how people can hold such a malicious hatred towards them or any animal. An animal is simply driven to survive and regardless of a humans feelings towards them, it will continue to do so. I don't understand why people waste emotionally fueled hatred on a creature that is completely oblivious to their feelings towards it and is completly indifferent towards their existence. Hate can only affect someone negativley if that someone has the capacity to understand what hate is and animals do not. Some peoples minds are just trapped in a bubble of human emotion and have a really hard time comprehending that animals do not think or behave in the same malicious manner as we do. That or he is just angry about something and he is using rats as a scapegoat to vent his anger.


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