Fluffy bunnies get me every time

IT’S not even Hallowe’en and there are a pile of Christmas cards on my desk.

Heaps of them, from various packages pushed through the letterbox. And not just any old Christmas cards — no, these are heart-string yankers. Labrador puppies with snow-dusted noses sending Christmas wishes; kittens playing with Christmas tree baubles; mummy polar bears licking baby polar bears; seals with saucer-sized eyes and CGI Santa hats gazing beseechingly at you.

And then there’s the 2013 calendars. Half a dozen, all sent free and unsolicited, featuring close-ups of adorable dogs, foxes, monkeys, lions, elephants, bears, white mice, chickens, badgers, tiny pink piglets, baby horses and the fluffiest of fluffy bunnies. And catalogues, full of dogs bouncing through woodland, horses galloping in meadows, fox cubs sunbathing, deer innocently nibbling leaves… it’s unbearable. As are the prices of the stuff that the catalogues are selling. Do I really want a save-the-badger dressing gown or a hand-crafted bird feeder? Would I like to rewrite my will leaving everything to the donkey sanctuary?

Probably. That’s the problem. You see, they know I like them, and now they know where I live. I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it was a petition I signed, a visit to an animal sanctuary, or a form I filled in, but they have tracked me down and now they are on my desk, staring up at me with those huge tragic eyes.

They are all here. Dogs Trust, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Compassion in World Farming, League Against Cruel Sports, International Fund For Animal Welfare, mare and foal sanctuaries, cats protection, hedgehog rescue. The only ones that don’t make me overflow with a desire to scoop them all protectively to my bosom are the cats (because cats would hate that) and the hedgehogs (because they’re prickly). I sit at my desk, engulfed in animal need, and curse myself for being such a total sucker.

It’s not like I get like this about human need. Oh no. Someone else can Save the Children, write the Amnesty letters, join Greenpeace. I’m too busy being emotionally manipulated by charities that knit chikinis — that is, small chicken-shaped jumpers — for stressed overcrowded hens who have had all their feathers pecked out by other stressed overcrowded hens in hideous farms. Well, someone has to.

And now, the animals have launched a pre-emptive Christmas strike. By bombarding soppy eejits like me with cards, calendars and catalogues, they are guaranteed some guilt money; it’s not like you can just keep the free stuff without sending something back for it. That would be like stealing food from the puppies and bunnies. That would be like mugging Bambi. Oh God. You can see what they’ve done here. Well done, fluffy creatures, it worked.