#16598: — 02/22  at  09:08 PM
1. Wile E. Coyote. He's erudite and unflappable, and yet conveys a certain grotesque, miserable comic charm.

2. Were-tortoise. Long lifespan, very little stress.

3. My bassett hound, Winnie. "Stop barking!"

4. I don't eat meat now, but such a revelation would probably make me go vegan.

5. Doesn't matter. I won't be around to appreciate it or be repulsed by it, one way or the other. Now, if I'm still *alive* while the jackals are tearing me apart, that's a different story...

#16599: Dr Pretorius — 02/22  at  09:17 PM
1. I want to be Batman. What? Humans are animals...

2. Actually I'd kind of like to turn into a wolf -- though it would have to be a real wolf, and not one of those man-wolf things which generally just look like the costume department got lazy and taped a carpet to an old leisure suit.

3. My old Cocker Spaniel - "For God's Sake! The food on the table is for US! The food in the bowl is for you. Get it straight."

4. I can't think of a single animal based food that I'm currently reluctant to give up. In fact, giving up eating animal based foods isn't even on the table as far as I'm concerned.

5. It's all the same to me, at that point. I suppose it wouldn't hurt if someone else got a meal out of it though.

#16600: coturnix — 02/22  at  09:38 PM
1. Blondie, of course!

2. Guys, guys, read the question! Not who you want to be, but who do you not mind being bitten by? Ware-mosquito, I guess.

3. My late Jack Russell, Grushenka. I am sure we would have deep philosophical discussion late into the night.

4. I am such a carnivore, although I understand that they have a lot going on inside their heads, at least the mammals and birds,...but if they all started talking to us and laughing at our jokes, I would be uncomfortable, I guess. Perhaps I could stll ask for some milk and an occasional egg... I doubt crayfish will ever talk, though...

5. I'd like to be silaged and a tree planted in me, but being a meal for any animal would be fine.

#16601: — 02/22  at  09:57 PM
1. Grommit. Some days I need to be bailed out just like Wallace.

2. Were-cat. It'd force me to catch up on my sleep once a month.

3. Either of my cats (1 Burmese, 1 tuxedo-shorthair-heinz57) -- just _once_ I'd like them to at least _listen_ to a logical argument abut why they really shouldn't claw furniture, pee on the wall behind the litter box, or keep jumping in my lap when I'm trying to finish a paper at 2 am.

4. Milk chocolate.

5. I wouldn't mind being eaten by wild critters, but I'd hate for them to then learn that humans are tasty and go after live ones. (Think highly of myself, don't I?)

#16603: Chris Clarke — 02/22  at  10:11 PM
1) Is a succubus a critter? If so, Drusilla from Pibgorn. If not, Hobbes.

2) Raven. It'd make those Mojave trips way more interesting.

3) My 14-year-old Shepherd mutt Zeke. I'd tell him what all the years of friendship have meant to me, tell him I love him dearly and that he's been the world's best dog bar none, and then I'd explain how he could self-diagnose minor ailments thus saving big veterinary bucks over the next year or two.

4) Squid.

5) I actually plan to arrange to be out in the wilderness when the time comes. If I can't be a were-raven, at least my eyeballs can hop a ride in a raven's stomach.

#16605: paperwight — 02/22  at  11:16 PM
1) A Go-Go Gopher, probably the Chief. Or maybe Underdog. No, a Go-Go Gopher.

2) Were-dolphin.

3) My terrier, and I'd mostly want to tell him what a great dog he was and that it was OK that he bit me that one time -- I know I surprised him.

4) Wild Salmon.

5) As long as no-one was worrying about me, out in the wilderness.

#16606: David Winter — 02/22  at  11:32 PM

Being a haven for hagfish briefly would be kind of cool.

Sounds a little like W.D. Hamilton's last request:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton#Postscript

Oh, and by the way. 1. Has to be Nibbler from Futurama. Too cute and a member of the universe's most powerful people.

#16611: — 02/23  at  12:14 AM
1. Hard to choose between Mighty Mouse and Crusader Rabbit.

2. A crow. They seem to have a lot of free time and it would be nice to know what they're up to. I swear I've heard them coordinate attacks on hawks. Flying ought to be fun, too.

3. With the dogs I've known I'd be more interested in listening. They seem to understand me pretty well. I'll pick Bella, my brother's brilliant mutt, and ask "Why do you love to chase laser beams? You're a dog, not a cat!"

4. No change. I'm utterly heartless, and I already consider them more or less sentient.

5. I'd far prefer being eaten, to being useful at least as meat, to being cremated.

#16613: — 02/23  at  12:21 AM
1. The Bugs Bunny from the 1930's/40's.
2. Weremonger.
3. What would you like like for breakfast breakfast;
Fluffy the Siamese.
4. Bird's nest soup.
5. Buried, because that's what it says in the Scriptures.

Trackback: Hmmmm Tracked on: Thoughts From Kansas (72.9.234.70) at 2005 02 22 23:13:16
This is tough. 1. Dr. Zoidberg 2. Dragonfly 3. Never had either. I'd probably ask my rabbit what coprophagy's like. 4. Anything that isn't boiled alive or (like oysters) eaten while nearly alive. 5. Woods.

#16620: Alex Merz — 02/23  at  01:22 AM
"Buried or exposed, I'll be consumed." Um, many states don't permit burial without embalming. If you want to be consumed, go for exposure or know the laws in your state and be prepared to have your survivors circumvent them.

#16623: — 02/23  at  01:55 AM
1. I don't know, but Nibbler sounds like a good idea. So do Bender (bendus evilus) and Dr. Zoidberg.

2. A werebat, because he can fly.

3. I'd tell all our long-gone cats to stop scratching us.

4. That's a hard one, considering that I really like meat. The top two contenders are chicken breast and fillet of beef.

5. Discovered, just so that people would not worry about where I am. I don't really care what they do with my body afterward.

#16629: — 02/23  at  02:30 AM
5. Buried or exposed, I’ll be consumed.

I don't particularly want to take up space in a cemetary, no matter what. Ashes are so delightfully compact. My mother had a near-phobia about being eaten, and so arranged for space in a mausoleum. Every time I visit I think about what a waste of resources it is. But she does have a nice hunk of fossiliferous marble covering the access hatch.

Um, many states don’t permit burial without embalming...

Eaten or not, eventually what's left will end up lithified.

#16633: Mrs Tilton — 02/23  at  03:58 AM
1. Bugs, of course. The old Bugs, mind you; pre-Chuck Jones if at all possible.

2. Were-albatross.

3. I have never owned cat nor dog. But for the sake of the question, let us assume I have a retriever called Nosher. I'd say, 'Nosher, be honest with me now. All this sniffing of each others' bums that you lot like so much -- what's the attraction?'

4. If they had feelings and a sense of self just like humans, they'd be (effectively if not biologically) humans, wouldn't they? In which case it would be odd (though not unprecedented) to eat any of them. But I suppose it's lamb I would miss most.

5. At first I was going to answer, 'eaten by scavengers', but then I read PZ's response and realised I was being partial to (relatively) charismatic megafauna. But I'd still consign my mortal remains to a vulture or jackal. For won't they themselves die and be eaten some day by microbes (directly, or after further links in the chain)? By feeding the jackal, I am so to speak fattening it up for the worms; some of whom will be eaten by planaria, some of whom will be eaten by bacteria or what have you. Circle of life and all that; spins in both directions.

BTW, being snarfed up by hagfish would certainly be cool, but surely they are a touch too, emm, vertebrate to qualify as marine invertebrates? If I went the seaborne route, I'd choose nudibranchs. Mind you, I don't know what they eat and perhaps they would not be interested in my corpse. Still, I like the idea of my discarded body covered in a carpet of beautiful bright coloured sea slugs, who'd shimmer and squiggle and slide round for a while, then swim off leaving only my gleaming bones behind.

And then some Osedax could settle in on the bones.

#16652: MikeS — 02/23  at  07:41 AM
1. Got to be Jessica Rabbit.
2. Weregorilla, but just a little nibble please?
3. Ptolemy, Burmese cat, "You know that word we keep shouting when we open the door for you to come in from your exercise? That's an abbreviated form of your name."
4. Any mollusc - I think they would rather be eaten.
5. Recovered, but only so that anyone bothered about my disappearance would know and stop worrying.

#16654: — 02/23  at  08:02 AM
1) Opus the penguin
2) A raccoon - so I can find out what they do at night besides get into my trash cans.
3) I would ask my cat, Pounce, why he always bites my feet when he wants food, there are, after all, three other people in the house.
4) Bacon
5)Left out in the woods, I think, that way some future forensic anthro major can do a thesis on the all the bite and claw marks on my skeleton.

#16656: Mutant Cat — 02/23  at  08:07 AM
1. Dexter. I know he's not an animal but who said we had to answer the questions properly.
2. I guess I wouldn't mind being bitten by a were-rabbit so much.
3. I don't have a pet, but if I did, a cat called, let's say Drusilla, I would ask her. "Do you really love me?" and she would mumble something unintelligible in reply. Then I'd say "You don't love me do you, you just hang around because I feed you and provide you with a warm place to sleep in all day!" and Drusilla would groan and go, "not this again, we go through this almost every day, I'm trying to get some sleep."
4. Don't know, probably wouldn't make much difference.
5. Like most of the godless I think, who cares? You're dead. I guess the being torn apart by animals is the cooler scenario.

#16660: Republic of Palau — 02/23  at  08:25 AM
1 Daggett the beaver, just so I can go "That was nuts!"
2 I wouldn't at all mind being a were banana slug for a while, think of the quiet.

3 I'd ask the cat why his ears smell so vilely of corruption.

4 Free range, organic, dry cured, proper Wiltshire back bacon, *yearn*

5 A mutant form of archaea that can reduce a body to dust in a couple of hours. Then sprinkled over the garden. Much more tidy than mere deliquescence.

#16672: — 02/23  at  11:02 AM
1. Hobbes. Definitely.
2. Wolf.
3. Hmmm. Tough one. I think It'd have to be the "when you don't feel well, could you please tell me, and where it hurts?"
4. Not much of anything. Maybe dairy products?
5. Couldn't really care less, family considerations aside. Eaten sounds fine enough. Although maybe not the hagfish...that's a bit too shuddery even for me.

#16680: Chris Clarke — 02/23  at  11:29 AM
After some thought, I'd like to amend my answer to number four from "squid" to "I wouldn't rule out any of the animals I now eat, but would give serious consideration to eating humans."

Oh, and speaking of squid, this is the scene that greeted me as I walked the dog this morning (click thumbnail for larger version):

#16723: — 02/23  at  01:31 PM
1. If we can count humans as animals, I'll take Amy from 'Futurama'. Yes, I know, it's rather pathetic.

2. Definately a were-dolphin.

3. I would ask Jeebus, our aussie shepard/healer/mutt, why she can't push open a door even when it's already ajar and she can practically fit through the existing space.

4. I think the only animals that are good candidates for having a sense of self are already off my eating list. If a sense of self were discovered in anything I ate though, I'd have zero resistance to give it up. And I'd probably be rather traumatized about my prior eating of it.

PZ, as for your "fish, mollucs and crustaceans" comment, one of my old professors had a handy quantitative guide to what he ate: if it had an amygdala, and could thus presumably feel fear, it was off limits.

5. This is a tough one. I'm very skeeved out about the prospect of being worm food. But I'm also very skeeved about people poking around at my body after I'm dead (with the exception of harvesting my organs), so the whole cemetary burial process is not appealing to me either. I could live with being eaten by macro-sized animals, but I don't like the idea of never being found. I suppose on balance I'd have to pick the eaten by wild animals option - but I'd want them to eat me up before I got rotten and wormy.


And special thanks to Mrs. Tilton. The mental image of being eaten by hagfish (shudder) is going to haunt my dreams now.

#16764: — 02/23  at  03:30 PM
1. I'd most like the fascist cat from Dilbert to be real. I'd most like the fascist idiot in the White House NOT to be real.
2. Werewallaby or wereheron
3. I would tell my cat to stop destroying furniture.
4. Milk and cheese. Cows will just have to live with it.
5. I'd rather be eaten by large carnivorous animals than small gooey ones.

#16774: Josh — 02/23  at  03:51 PM
Thanks to David Winter for finally reminding me who it was that the beetles were eating. I read that essay and the name was crowded out by the coolness of that final repose.

#16920: Mrs Tilton — 02/24  at  06:19 AM
jbarker,

you have Prof Myers to thank for your hagfish dreams. My suggestion was the far more aesthetically pleasing scavenging-by-sea-slug.

#17024: — 02/24  at  03:00 PM
1. Llewellyn the dragon.
2. <---Badger. I'd get over the horrific damage.
3. I'd want to talk to my two-year-old blue Persian cat Smoky about why he seems so insecure and sad. I'd want to tell him he's in a safe place and we love him and he doesn't have to suckle our blanket and cry at night.
4. I'm already a vegetarian, but I'd stop using dairy products, and start buying eggs from the hens (fair trade eggs! lol).
5. I don't care, so long as I don't make anything sick by ingesting me.