The year is 3000. All governments have failed, and all human beings are at war with one another. Hospitals are abandoned and zoos overrun with wild animals, resulting in the repopulation of wild friends. This repopulation includes those mentioned in mythical stories and fiction, like unicorns, dementors, and fauns. From the mass increase of animals, each person alive gets to choose one animal to be with at all times, who will respect you and be your right-hand man (or woman). This animal is what you will ride into a land/sea battle in the year 3001, where you battle everyone left living. This is a life or death battle that not even the creativity of your 6-year-old self could comprehend would be real. This is a battle that will truly put all of the Harry Potter, Narnia, and Twilight fight scenes combined to shame. What animal will you choose to ride into battle?
 
From this question of riding an animal into battle, you can go about choosing an animal one of two ways: think critically to win or accept you’re going to die and go with the animal you will have the most fun with. You can choose the path of thinking critically and explore dynamics like speed, size, pure strength, or elasticity. The second option, accepting your fate, is my first choice. If I go into battle riding an animal, I know deep down that during battle, vampires and werewolves will triumph, and I will die. Another reason I choose to accept death is my ultimate theory of how life would be if I did win the battle. My theory is: if I am the sole winner of the Battle of 3001, I would die of starvation or more likely, stupidity. My wilderness skills are equivalent to a newborn baby’s, practically nonexistent. I could survive off the land for like a week, but I’m fairly confident I would perish from sickness or boredom soon thereafter.

The animal I would ride into battle would be a giraffe. Okay, I know it’s not a first pick of animal for many people. By many standards, a giraffe would not fall under an animal suited for battle, but hear me out. A giraffe is a tall mammal that grazes for particular leaves, who swings its tail in contentment, and looks like E.T. when it smiles. The giraffe perfectly matches my criteria for going into battle: stylish, one-of-a-kind, and exciting. Most importantly, the giraffe would offer a great view of the battle and release me from doing the dirty work. My philosophy is: if you know from the start that you aren’t going to make it to the end of the battle, why not enjoy your time left? I could die trying hard, fighting for my life, drawing blood, battling on an angry, snorting, ultra-scary bull, or I could just grab some grapes, sit on top of a hill, and watch all the people on vicious creatures like dementors go at it. Truly, the only thing I would be missing is someone to feed me grapes off the vine and fan me with a palm leaf.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what animal I choose, how I die, or if, miraculously, I win the battle. The success of my choice all comes down to when I’m dead, I will be content knowing I have felt like a bad-ass riding a giraffe and watched an epic battle.

What animal you ride doesn’t really determine your fate; it demonstrates your life priorities. I guess my priorities are having fun and being happy in intense situations.