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Pet hates are great, even the name. It’s such a hodge-podge of contradiction. You put something as negative as a hate (not even a dislike) together with the ultra-friendly word pet. They shouldn’t coexist but of course in our paradoxical world, they do. We love our pets. We hold them and stroke them and give them little cuddles. We keep them close because they are soft and shivery and furry and they so desperately need our love. Now put that concept beside one of hatred. All the positive love you feel for your little pet but now focused on a hate. A little slimy ball of negativity you can hold close to your heart and whisper sweet nothings in its hairy waxy ear. You can have a whole armful of hatred which you can care for and nurture and give little kissies to at night. So what exactly is a pet hate? Well primarily it’s something you hate about the world or about people and you feel passionate about it! This passion causes you to carry the hate close to your heart (because you actually do care) and then at appropriate times, perhaps during a conversation where the offending habit or person type is mentioned, you spew all your hatred onto the table in front of you like the devil’s bile. Finish with a knowing-eyes-up-to-heaven-type-smile while wiping your mouth clean while nodding and say ‘yea, I really hate that!’ We all have them. You may think that you are a hate-free zone prancing through the world all full of love and respect whilst placing daisies in the tops of soldiers guns but, whether you like it or not, that is simply not the truth! Inside your chest cavity, right beside your overly-large heart lies a little secret chamber full to the brim with worm-like creatures who give you intense wriggly-pleasure when you think about them. They harbour negative feelings towards a myriad of things which of course varies from individual to individual. It may be a particular person such as someone you hate from the television or it could be a profession such as banking or law for example. It could be an action like a particular war or perhaps a fruit or a particular type of car which you think looks like two cars welded together. Your pet hate could be people who wear suits and runners at the same time or girls in pyjamas with orange faces. You could hate the inclement weather in a particular country or hate the people of another country with beautiful weather just because you feel that they don’t bloody-well appreciate it. You could hate people who don’t open the door for other people or people who don’t smile when you open the door for them. You could hate the way buses don’t offer change and everyone has to get on and off using the same door. Perhaps one of your pet hates is the two water taps in Ireland? Or the huge dinner plates in America? Or the cold beauty of Paris? We definitely all have them and they can range from the obvious to the downright strange. Pet hates are like little golden maggots which we feed love to, and then over the years they multiply inside of us giving a lovely warm feeling of hatred when we encounter the ridiculousness of them out in the big cold world. Pet hates help us to deal with shit by allowing us to turn anger into pleasure and wry humour. They bring us closer to our fellow man by offering us a channel of communication through which we can share our beautiful hatred of aspects of the world and the crazy people who live on it. Long live pet hates! © John, 2012

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