Cats
Forget about the fact that they sneak -- they sneak until you catch sight of them, then they jaunt to some spot only demarcated by their beady feline eyes as if it were their own.

Forget about the fact that they have that unnerving way of looking at you. Looking at you as though they deigned to have you exist in that spot.

Forget about the airs they conduct themselves with, borne by the fact that they have three names, two of them specifically for the purpose of its own self-worth, as though the second name elevated itself above all other animals, and its third name elevated it above humans.

The reason why cats would make me head for the door is one of the more basic reasons anyone would be affected by a cat -- allergies.

It starts with the watering eyes. Cat walks in the room, and my eyes get redder than the strung-out guy's who's sitting in the middle of the room mumbling to himself. Then it moves to a tickle in the nose. The kind that makes you screw your face into all different contortions while you've got a tissue at the ready, cause you're not really sure if you're gonna sneeze, but you know you want to. The mouth goes drier than a Southern California wash in mid-July. Then comes the sneezing itself. Great, head and tail shaking sneezing that just knocks a guy out of commission.

And all the while there's this ... this thing strutting around the room, getting hair in anything that's liquid or on anything that's a colour opposite its fur, taking up as much space as possible because there's a bunch of people not paying attention to it, until there are two things we have to avoid in the middle of the room.

Cats. They'll shut a party down faster than a cop at the door.