I grew up in rural Vermont, a place where people have little inhibition when it comes to killing animals. If a woodchuck is eating my Dad’s garden or burrowing into the foundation of our pool and causing it to slide down the giant hill behind my house, it will either be shot, or caught and subsequently drowned.
I was also never a particularly sensitive child. I didn’t sit in my room ripping the appendages off flies for pleasure, but I also didn’t start crying when I found out that hamburgers were made of cows.
So, this year, when I returned to school and excitedly showed my roommates my new fur scarf, I was shocked when one of them gasped in horror as I told her what kind of fur it was. Who knew so many people liked chinchillas? It has now become a running joke among my friends that I derive some sort of sick pleasure from the death of rodents. To that, I just have to say that if people weren’t okay with the idea, whack-a-mole wouldn’t exist.
I know that some of my roommates are strongly opposed to my fashion choices, even though they hide their thoughts from me.
Their opinions are not entirely unexpected. It occurred to me that in the U.S., there is a sort of taboo concerning fur. Ironically, many of the girls at this school walk around with lamb carcasses wrapped around their feet, yet somehow it’s not okay for me to drape dead chinchillas around my neck. And when I purchase Sperrys, no one reminds me that a cow had to die for my shoes. Maybe it’s because cows are delicious and chinchillas taste like dirt.
I bought the scarf for the equivalent of 20 dollars in rubles at an open-air market in Moscow. So, I wasn’t expecting great value, but when I got home and Googled how much a chinchilla costs (~$150) I realized I had saved a lot of money.
I’m not going to tell you how many chinchillas I think are in my scarf, but it’s a lot. Just think of the value—and I don’t even have to feed them! I understand that this article makes me sound cold and heartless, but those chinchillas were just going to die anyway. I mean, I will too, but I’m probably going to hell. Those chinchillas will be basking in God’s favour in chinchilla heaven. The bastards.
