A rat? I couldn't win a fight with a rat if I was armed with a shovel, gun, dynamite and full body armor. I'd still scream and run away.
I'm not a fan of rats. Not a fan of fighting, either, which may be related.
For years at our home in Suisun City, I battled field mice. In the yard. In our shed. One memorable time, the mice were angry after I fed their friends poison, so they chewed through a plastic gas container, hoping to burn down our shed.
It was terrorism. It worked: I was terrified.
That was mice. To get a comparison for a rat, think of yourself as a mouse and your crazy cousin as the rat. You know the cousin: The family member most likely to start a fight or to show up drunk a a major affair. The one who thrilled and terrified you in childhood. That cousin. They're the rat in this comparison.
If I couldn't win a fight with a mouse, I couldn't win one with a rat.
I'm not sure I could beat up any animal, but ask Americans and most think they could beat up some animals, at least according to the Yougov America survey. That includes house cats (69%) and geese (61%). Are Americans unaware that cats are insane and would never quit fighting? Have they never been to a local park and encountered an angry goose (every goose)?
These Americans-vs.-animals survey results are a follow-up to the original study. In the first survey, YouGov asked people who would win in a variety of animal fights to determine which animals are considered the best fighters. The animals with the highest winning percentage among matchups were considered the best fighters, so this isn't science. It's not based on facts. It's based on what people think.
The elephant was considered the most difficult animal to defeat in that survey, followed by the rhino. Both were estimated to win about three-fourths of their matchups, narrowly ahead of the grizzly bear. Cheetahs, by the way, were picked to win 56% of their fights, which shows that we have some work to do to convince people that cheetahs never prosper (Get it?).
Humans, meanwhile, were picked to win only 17% of their fights, a winning percentage better only than the goose (again. Have these people never been to a local park and encountered aggressive geese?).
The follow-up survey – the one that provided the percentage of people who thought they could win a fight with a rat – asked whether people thought they could win a fight against a variety of animals. As mentioned, respondents were confident they could win only against the rat, house cat and goose. Most of us think we'd lose to most animals. For instance, fewer than 30% of Americans think they could win a fight against a large dog, chimp, wolf or crocodile.
In some ways, maybe the most confounding result isn't that 61% of people think they could defeat a goose or that 72% are foolhardy enough to think they could outfight a rat. It's that 6% think they could win a fight with a grizzly bear.
That means roughly one out of 15 people you know thinks he could beat up a grizzly bear in a fight. You know who that includes?
Your crazy cousin. The rat.
Now do you understand why I couldn't beat up a rat?
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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