Animal skin prints bug me

Greek Sunday newspapers like most Sunday newspapers over the world include a variety of catalogues and advertising brochures along with their extended weekend reading materials. I give these pamphlets a quick scan through before storing them in the recycle bin. I have noticed how particularly bulky these leaflets get a few weeks before the Christmas and Easter bonuses of the average Greek worker, but I digress.

Leafing through a bed and bath catalogue I glanced over a leopard-spotted bed set. Bed cover, sheets and pillow cases. The explanatory print next to the price listed that this was also available in tiger print and zebra print.

Now, feel free to call me unsophisticated, but seriously, animal skin prints? I can understand way back when primitive or pioneer man hunted for food and utilized the animal hides to shelter him from the weather. Somehow a modern day yuppie ordering animal skin prints to wrap his dreams in seems so out of place and environmentally distasteful. Maybe I'm just too naive to fully grasp the sexual innuendo of animal prints in the boudoir -meow, purr, scratch.

Many moons ago, back when I was single and the wheel recently invented, I crossed dating paths with an unbeknownst to me zoolander. He came on our second rendezvous wearing a tiger striped T-shirt. I gasped at the sight of his rendition of a CATS costume. I tried to avoid it, but my snickering and imitation of a hyena took over. It was an awkward few minutes that saved us the trouble of attempting a third date. Later on I found out from friend of a friend of a friend who went out with him a few weeks that this guy had an animal print fetish. I'm talking entire bedroom cloaked in spots and stripes. A male version of Cruella DeVile (minus the puppies).

Recently I walked into the elevator at work and started to say good morning to a gal pal when I halted my greeting in mid air. She was sporting a fake fur leopard jacket.

"What's THIS?" I roared.

She jumped and glanced frantically around, "wha, what?"

"Why are you wearing look-alike dead animals on you? What’s this about? I like furs but I'm against the killing part? "

She rebuffed quickly, "It was on sale! I like it and... besides I see you're wearing leather shoes".

"Yeah, but my cow was yours and mine dinner last night, whereas the poor leopard -albeit fake- would not have made shish kebab try-outs! In any case, my shoes are industrial leather miss-know-it-all, the cheap kind that makes feet extra smelly".

We glared at each other until we reached our floors.

Animal skin prints bug me. Solids, floral and plaids work just fine for me, my clothes, my bed linen and my sofa cover.

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