I like animals. I like them a lot. I am not very reasonable when it comes to them either, so when I insisted on my last new pet, it came to my husband as more of an annoyance than a surprise.

We were in town on a few errands we needed to run when I saw it. Golden fur, big sturdy build, beautiful soft golden mane and as he ran by us with his master, the flexing of his leg muscles was at once a picture of brutal beauty and the incarnation of graceful might. I had never seen one like this before.

I don’t know if it was a gasp or a squeal that escaped my lips first, but it came out with the words, “I want a lion!”

“What?” P said, looking at me like I had just asked if he would mind if I cut of one of his arms, “noooooo.” But it was the kind of no he says for the record and not because he thinks there is a bit of hope of swaying me.

On my behalf, he did a little research. As it turns out, not just anyone can have a lion at any time. And since I was pretty firm on my specifications (must have a mane, must…well mostly that was all of them) it narrowed my choices of where I could get one down a bit.

The facts were these: Lions can only be found in a few places; the places where I could find a lion I could hope to tame before it killed me were even fewer. There was a lion population we could maybe select from, but it was located in a place where we would be sitting ducks for “ganking” by our enemies, since the lion herd was located on clear cut enemy territory.

He tried to convince me I would like a nice wolf, or a flying snake like thing, and he even offered me a dinosaur! No and No!

He almost had me when he said gorilla. I mean, to be honest, it’s kind of a life long dream of mine to acquire a monkey of any kind.

I made some big life and career choices that were based solely on the fact that I had it on good authority these choices would eventually open doors to monkey ownership. But alas, I am in no position to take on a monkey at this time (but it remains my ultimate goal).

I must look awful pretty when I beg (and whine, and kick, and refuse to do ANYTHING until he gives in) because within 15 minutes I had him doing that simultaneous neck roll-groan-face rub thing he does right before he bends to my will.

We dropped our other tasks and set of on a quest of our own design, which I like to call “Operation get Emma Lee a Lion!”

My escort and champion was not “ganked” even once. I was ganked only once. I learned a valuable lesson from that experience too: If my husband says “jump off this bridge now!” I had better jump off the dang bridge first and ask questions later.

I also learned that just because people look, talk and dress differently than us, it doesn’t mean they are all evil. I mean, sure... one of them ganked me for no apparent reason just as I was stepping off the boat, but another one of them killed a giant lizard thing that was trying to eat my head and that seemed nice to me.

We are home safely now and we each got us a new lion. P-wog has his little girl, Shakira (seen in the background below), who has proven to be quite the champ herself.

And here is my boy ThankMyHero—I figure if racing horses can have sentences for names, why can’t cartoon lions?