If I could have any supernatural wish, it would be for animals to talk in human languages, preferably the same language as the people around them. No dead languages or cats in France speaking Japanese or dogs in Canada speaking Swedish. Unless of course the French cats were part of Japanese households or the Canadian dogs lived with Swedish exchange students. Or if a linguist studying Aramaic had a parrot that spoke Aramaic, that would be ok. I would wish for that.

Tonight I looked at my pets and really, really, really wished they could talk. Matt and I tried to imagine their voices and how their vocal personalities would match what we make of their gestural personalities. Adelina the semi-shy, hyper guinea pig would sound like the girl with the low self-esteem in the fashion club in the tv show Daria. Penelope the cool, calm guinea pig would be Daria. Ivan would sound dignified, said Matt, but would say undignified things. He would be like the dwarf guy in Game of Thrones. Ivan and the dwarf guy are both hedonists, Matt explained.

Then I realized that if all animals could talk, maybe people would feel bad about eating Henrietta the kind-hearted chicken or castrating Jimmy the wise-cracking but vulnerable bull calf. Wouldn’t everyone just turn vegetarian. Matt said that there would be some real asshole animals so people would still eat animals to make them shut up.

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