Diary Tuesday
Why are you so cute?!

I will get to the bunny.

Today I was volunteering as a shelf reader at my local public library. For any unfamiliar with library speak, a shelf reader makes sure the books on the shelf are in the proper order. I was working on a section of the youth nonfiction shelves, and if you read those shelves like a sentence, the sentence would be something like: Cat the on mat sat. Yeah, the books were pretty out of order, though this is hardly surprising. Because it's kids, you say? No. Because they actually get looked at. Take a note adults. Read! When I was working as a shelver 90% of shelving was children's books. Which tells me why kids are sometimes smarter than adults. Actually, I'd venture to guess, if you're reading this, you probably do read more than the average adult. Good for you. Here's a cookie.

Anyway, as I was straightening up the animal books, and found like a million books on bunnies, a thought occurred to me. Why are certain animals cute? What useful purpose could it possibly serve to find the young of a different (very edible species) adorable? Shouldn't it be more common to look at it and think: "Yum, a vulnerable piece of delicious meat"? I suppose finding the babies cute could be a way to force us to let them grow before we eat them. But that doesn't explain why some animals are even cute when they're fully grown. Although, bunnies aren't nutritious enough to sustain you alone, so perhaps that's why. But I still remember this line from a fantasy book I read (Foundation, by Mercedes Lackey) where the boy sees a little girl crying over a dead rabbit, and having grown up with no food, the boy's immediate desire is to offer to help her skin it. Luckily, it's fantasy, and his magic horse prevents this social faux pas.

Still, there are some very edible animals that we consider cute. Is it maybe just conditioning, just because we're told they're cute? Did cavemen think they were cute? And why are they always mammals?