Have you ever had a frustrating moment in your day and thought, “If I were a lion, I wouldn’t have this problem”?
Really? Me too. Those lions. They have it made in the shade. Here are some common people problems that wouldn’t be problems for lions.
Getting “Burn” by Ray Lamontagne Stuck in Your Head
You know when you get a song stuck in your head and it just plays over and over and over and over again, and you sing it in your car, and in the kitchen while you’re doing dishes, and you try to figure out how to bleep out the g-d part because you don’t want your toddler singing that? And then finally you have to look up the guitar chords so you can get the full effect in your living room?
Yeah. Not a problem for lions seeing as they don’t have CD players, and even if they did, Ray Lamontagne might be a little too indie for the average plains-dweller.
Listening to Angry People Talk About Politics
Civility in politics is dead, and if you take the civility out of politics, you’re left with annoyance. If some yammerhole gets all red-faced and absurd about politics while talking with a lion, the lion wouldn’t have to feign interest or try to find an interesting segue to plants or (obviously) Ray Lamontagne. No, the lion has simpler solutions.
Deciding What to Make for Dinner
I’m pretty sure lions just eat whatever’s running by. Sure they probably get bored with zebra from time to time, but their lives are simple; they’re not bombarded with a thousand restaurants, and 400 kinds of soup, and a million new uses for the crock pot which they discovered on Pinterest. See it. Catch it. Eat it.
Yes, the life of a lion: so simple, so bloody. Plus, they look really comfortable when they take naps. Which of your problems could be solved by being a lion? Do share.
mathetos
/ March 19, 2013Lions don’t write Master’s theses. They are the SUBJECT of Master’s theses, by just eating and napping! Yes, add another creature in the world besides myself that I’m enviable of. That’s what you did, right there.
jeff
/ September 13, 2012Hmmmmmmm, I believe I was called a plains dweller, when I’m distinctly a foothiller, La Mon Tag Nee preferences aside. Harumph I say, and no one’s ever made me say that before.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 13, 2012I’m good at extracting noises from people. More of that for you, sir, in about a week!
Kristen Mae
/ September 10, 2012Knee problems. Finding the right kind of running shoes so that your knee problems don’t get worse. Insurance (ALL KINDS OF INSURANCE). Crazy ass-hats at your kid’s school’s car-loop. Weight issues. Pretense.
On the other hand, I’ve heard on those nature shows that Lion’s rarely catch the first thing they chase. It’s apparently quite difficult to get a meal when you’re lion. So maybe for that reason alone I’m okay not being a lion.
But I imagine a meal would be incredibly satisfying if I had to work that hard to get it. Plus I’d be totally svelt from all that chasing and hunger. Not that I would care; I’d be a lion. Maybe I do want to be a lion.
sedrate
/ September 6, 2012If the kids misbehave you grab them by the scruff of the neck with your teeth and shake the silly out of them. And you kill anything that annoys you.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012And none of the lion moms would get all judgy. They’d just mouth from across the way, “Harder. Shake them harder.”
thekalechronicles
/ September 5, 2012Meeting blog deadlines. Lions don’t do that. Earning money. Lions don’t do that either. And if someone growled at me I’d just slash her. Lions don’t have to make their beds, vacuum, put away their stuff, because they don’t have any stuff. This lion life is sounding better and better. But they can’t sing or play the guitar or write or cook so they don’t have it all.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012Blog writing almost made the list. So true.
And lions could play the guitar, but they’d have to clip their claws and later they’d die because they couldn’t protect themselves. Talk about suffering for their art. They’re so much better than me.
Mackenzie | Bright Strange Things
/ September 5, 2012These are all excellent points, and ones I feel I’ll need to bear in mind to get me through the workweek. Next time somebody at my office prints out a web page, then tells me to scan it so they can email it to somebody else — no seriously, this is my life — I’m going to be all, “Pft, no way. If lions don’t have to deal with that, neither do I.”
I bet somewhere on the savannah right now though there’s some lion getting into a fist-fight with some hyenas and being like, “Freaking humans don’t have to deal with this! What I wouldn’t give for a nice cup of coffee and a spreadsheet right now!”
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012Holy crap. How do you survive in your workplace?! Next time I suggest you charge $20. You might have a flourishing small business coming together here. I’ll take 10%.
Mackenzie | Bright Strange Things
/ September 6, 2012I don’t, I actually gave them notice last week even though I don’t have another job lined up yet. It feels crazy to do something like that but also in the long run it seemed cheaper than ulcers. Or time spent incarcerated for murder. ;D
toughlittlebirds
/ September 5, 2012Hahaha! Awesome post! I’m sure a lion never had to figure out how much this year’s overhead charge on a grant was supposed to be…
On the other hand, I’ll never have to worry that someone will murder my boyfriend, become my boyfriend by having done so, and then kill all my (hypothetical) children before insisting that he and I have more children RIGHT AWAY in the hopes that they will grow up before someone else kills THAT boyfriend, and on and on. I think I prefer being human.
Stephen
/ September 5, 2012Speaking hypothetically from the male lion’s point of view, this is a point well taken.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012Yeah, going to a bar with your boyfriend would take on a whole new level of meaning. There’d be a lot of jumpy guys out there. They’d be sweating everywhere.
Erica Schatz
/ September 5, 2012Yes! Especially the dinner part! Now that I’m unemployed, I’ve become over obsessed with looking up recipes and varying my meals every night. I need to go back to my “lion days” of pasta, pasta, pasta, cup of noodle, pasta.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012Meal planning. Boo. It’s seriously one of my least favorite things to do.
outlawmama
/ September 5, 2012Lions don’t feel stabby when they drop their kid off at preschool and everyone zooms off in black Lexus SUVs.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012They also don’t have to feel weird when getting their sensible sedan with a dusty dash, car seat, and sun shade valet parked. Man, lions are totally winning the people v. lions game.
nataliedeyoung
/ September 5, 2012Lions don’t have to do spreadsheets. EVER.
Deborah the Closet Monster
/ September 5, 2012Yes! This. No Microsoft program use EVER FTW.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012So true. So, so true.
normalfornorfolk
/ September 5, 2012But you never see a lioness standing in front of a full length mirror poking at her stomach saying “I am sooooo bloated today…This dress fitted much better in the shop”. And if they have an itchy bottom/lady part, they can just scratch it in public…They don’t have to dance the irritation away like we do….
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012She’ll never be convinced that her fur is out of fashion, either.
The Church State Guy (@ChurchStateGuy)
/ September 5, 2012Just learned at the Wild Animal Park that lions sleep 20 hours A DAY! Holy Geez! That’s 4 hours of hunting/killing/deficating a day and then done… sleep the rest. Man, what a life.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 5, 2012Okay, now I’m actually a little mad that I’m NOT a lion.
Mackenzie | Bright Strange Things
/ September 5, 2012I second this, except I’m now SERIOUSLY mad. Also, I’m pretty sure my dog also sleeps 20 hours a day so I’m taking it more personally that there is no way for that to be my life.
lindsey
/ September 5, 2012If I were a lion, I wouldn’t have to work very hard to be a successful writer because if a lion wrote a book, you bet your ass you’d run out and buy it, if only to see what sorts of things lions write about. And you would be in awe of my awesome lion writing skills, and I would be forever known as that amazing writing lion and people would respect and fear me! It would be awesome.
Also, it’s now your fault if Burn gets stuck in my head because I promptly downloaded it because of this post. So thanks. Thanks a lot. (Both sincerely and sarcastically, as I like it right now, but expect it to become lodged at some point.)
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012So…what are the chances I can convince people I’m a lion?
Re: Burn, you’re welcome. And I’m sorry. A bit of both.
thedesperateman
/ September 5, 2012What I REALLY like about lions is that they sleep in the bows of trees while the lionesses do all the hunting and the rearing and the work in general, Polygamy at its best.
Melanie Crutchfield
/ September 6, 2012Didn’t you post that article about how men aren’t really necessary? It sounds a little more like that to me. If the lionesses ever figure out sperm bank technology, those furry dudes are in trouble.