Beasts of the Southern WildThere are some people who just love animal movies *cough, Denver Dalley, cough* and then there are those that don’t. And by “those” I really just mean me.

As my husband has so lovingly pointed out before, I have a cold black heart. That blackness really comes out with certain cartoons and pretty much any movie that features an animal, real or animated. I will give him that I’m not a full on lover of animated films, but I feel my reasoning to not liking animal movies is totally justified. SIDE: Are you all watching Justified this season? If not, you are all fools. It’s the best #$&@ing show on TV right now. END ASIDE.

The reason I don’t like animal movies is because 90% of the god damn time the animal dies. Animal deaths are way harder to deal with in movies than when a person dies, in my opinion at least. I mean, even if the animal is the biggest jerk like Scar in The Lion King (which, seriously, am I the only one who thought the Broadway version of this is WAY OVERRATED? Just me, cool. I like being a hater), it is still way harsh Tai than say when *SPOILER ALERT* Jack dies In Titanic.

Another reason I don’t like animal movies is that all animals remind me of my pugs. Which, in case you have forgotten, are the CUTEST PUGS IN DUNDEE. The Peter Jackson version of King Kong is a perfect example. When, spoiler alert (dear god, is it seriously still a spoiler if this shit was released like 100 years ago? Damn peeps!), King Kong is being attacked and he is kind of just sitting there at the end after being shot down and shit, the face he makes…gah, that is a Beeps Baum face. I was in tears! My husband, leaned over to me and was all snarky, “Ha, looks like King Kong made you cry.” OH HELL NO. I immediately turned to him and said, “No Beeps Baum makes me cry. They are killing my pug!”

Speaking of pugs…you know who else can’t handle animal movies? Beeps. Not sure if he is a hater like me, but certain things make that dog go crazy. He enjoys watching TV and movies as long as what he is watching does not entail: dogs, cats, horses, Guy Fieri, water (waves, splashes) and talking birds.

Last night is a prime example of Beeps and I protesting my husband and Mabel Baum and their animal movie watching. My husband and I have a few episodes of The Walking Dead to watch before we are finally all caught up, and during probably one of the better episodes of this season (any episodes without Andrea are always solid, god, she is the WORST), I looked over and my husband was falling asleep. IT WAS NOT EVEN 10 o’clock, weak baby Baumer right there for you. Anyway, I kept calling him out on being asleep and he kept denying it. We played that game for probably 15 minutes or so, because we are both 12 years old. Finally he got so mad, he decided that instead of watching more episodes of the Daryl Dixon Experience (I would watch that shit every damn day) he decided to grow a vagina and watch a movie. Not just any movie, he narrowed it down to the following: Beasts of the Southern Wild, staring BEASTS (and chickens) or Life of Pi, staring a CGI Tiger on a boat in the OCEAN.

In protest I went into the bedroom to read my book club book (Defending Jacob, so far, so good…). While in there I could still hear everything that was happening out in our living room while my husband was watching Beasts of the Southern Wild because he had that shit turned up to 11. Ridiculous. So I turned up, some Iron Chef America in the bedroom to a new level of awfulness to counter back. After way too long of out-volume-ing each other, he finally backed off and we could both protest in our separate spaces without busting ear drums.

Not more than five minutes later my husband stomped into the bedroom holding a crying Beeps. Apparently for the first half hour of the movie Beeps had jumped down and bark-cried at the TV. My husband couldn’t take it any longer, so Beeps joined me in bed for some reading and Iron Chef. He gladly accepted this.

So there we were Beeps and I – the animal haters – in one room with our cold black hearts while my husband and Mabel watched an animal movie together. Our family is super divided over this issue. What I’m most bothered by is that the little Mabel pug didn’t revolt and follow me into the bedroom. I feel betrayed, but then I remember she’s kind of an idiot and a dog so, you know…whatever.

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Kacie Baum is a professional partier, mother of two pugs, and the wife of Matt Baum. She tolerates the constant presence of the Two-Headed Nerd in her home each week. She did not write this bio. Pre-THN entries of Girl Meets Nerd can be found here.