TTANAO #5: Owl Furniture

Few things in this world give people comfort: grandparents, badgers, spray paint and furniture. At the same time, there are many things that bring discomfort. Our research shows that duct tape is the most stress-inducing object the world has to offer. A close second, however, are owls. Owls, as it turns out, have the unique ability to strike others with a sense of wondrous terror.

source actclassy.com

Above: The fuel of nightmares.

Within the past decade, ornithophobes have begun to feel the oppression of the free market: billions of people requesting owl-themed furniture have made it nearly impossible for the irrationally fearful to enter any home on seven of the nine continents without facing a grotesque, owl-themed object.

Therefore, in order to reduce worldwide stress (specifically for those with a fear of birds, and even more specifically for people with a fear of owls, which is pretty much just Eminem), we feel it necessary to distinguish between owl furniture and owls. Owl furniture, though initially frightening, is not an owl.

Let's start by taking a quick look at an example:

Source target.com

As soon as you can overcome the initial urge to flee and ignite your house on fire, you can start to focus on the finer details of this ridiculously-themed object. First, if you can remember anything at all from our last entry, you'll notice the chair is a disgusting shade of pink, which owls hate.

If, however, the coloration more closely resembled that of owls, an easy way to identify owl-themed furniture is to look at the legs. Do not be deceived by the number of legs. Rather, notice that the legs of this chair are wooden. Owl legs, regardless of how many an owl has, are not wooden. Therefore, we can conclude that the owl-themed chair is not an owl.

Here is an example of an owl and his legs:

Source telegraph.co.uk

Though this owl has four legs, not one is wooden.

 Another popular object in the world of owl-themed furniture is owl pillows. Owl pillows are especially popular among certain stupid interns who ignore the fact that their girlfriends are suffering from sleep apnea and need a special non-owl-themed pillow to get a good night's rest. Seriously Brian. Do you even remotely care about her?

Let's take a look at one of these aberrations:

Source mycottoncreations.blogspot.com

Again, the color. It's just all day with these people. I mean, are they even trying anymore? We would love to see how the exchanges go with the person who green-lights these projects:

Executive: Johnson! Why isn't our new owl-themed pillow covered in ungodly pastel colors?

Johnson: Because I'm going to start terrorizing the families of everybody in marketing until they fix the problem.

Executive: Johnson, you are the saving grace of this office. If I didn't detest any and all forms of affection, I would offer to shake your hand.

But I digress.

The best way to distinguish between an owl and an owl pillow is relatively simple: Fire. If you can set the questioned object on fire and it burns rapidly, it is not an owl. Scientists are nearly positive that owls burn at the same rate as chickens, which we all know to be 23 mm/s.

We've once again created a flowchart for easy access by our readers:

Let's look at one final owl themed object:

Source mainefurniture.org

At this point, you should be saying to yourself, "Are you serious? This hits, like, every single criteria for things that are not an owl." Wooden legs, flammable, shoddy craftsmanship, etc. This poorly-made owl stool (we mean "seat", so stop giggling like a two-year-old) shouldn't even pose a problem for the intelligent person you have become thanks to our blog.

So let's take a look at what we've learned:

1. Owls don't have wooden legs.
2. Eminem is going to start lighting pillows on fire.
3. Don't buy owl-themed furniture.
4. People are still incredibly confused about the coloration of owls.

Good luck out there, everyone!

TTANAO #4: Stuffed Animal Owls

It's a cold night. The clock strikes midnight. Frigid, you pull more covers over your body and curl up tight in your bed with your plush animal, a small owl doll...thing. Apart from the massive regret you have over buying such a horribly-themed stuffed animal, something feels slightly off. You can't help but think someone else is in the room with you. Someone... or something. Suddenly, the creature opens it's eyes, screeches fiercely and thrashes against your body.

A blend of stoic wisdom and terror.

It was an owl all along!

Did the toy salesman lie to you? Or did you accidentally wander into a weird pet store by mistake and, in your confusion, buy a drugged owl? You aren't sure because it's hard to think with an owl clawing at your eyes as you lay fighting for your life. Wait, you're still in bed? What are you doing, you imbecile? Get out of there!

The point of this all-too-familiar scenario is this: stuffed animal owls and real owls are two different things. The key difference is that a stuffed animal owl is not an owl. Forgetting this simple fact can cost you your eyes. But how can you tell what is an owl and what is a stuffed animal owl?

It's pretty easy, actually. Let's take a look at an example:

It doesn't taste as good as it looks. Trust me.

 At first, you may be distraught, thinking, "It looks demented! It's an owl!". While it may be true that most stuffed animal owls appear demented (it is a well-known fact that stuffed animal artisans are some of the finest craftsmen in the land), many have one particular trait which distinguishes them from real owls: multichromatic color schemes.

Owls are well-known for their dull appearance. Any deviation from this lack of bright coloration is a clear indicator that something is not an owl. If you take another quick look at the example, you should now notice the grotesque shade of pink covering the majority of the body. Owls aren't pink. Owls hate pink. If an owl saw something pink, it would probably go berserk and destroy that stupid pink thing.

But I digress.

Let's take a look at a few examples in one image:

Just owls bein' owls?

Orange, Pink, Blue, Green. We can conclude these are all stuffed animal owls. Each of these are not an owl. A real owl would probably just wreck that stupid pink one, too. Seriously, they hate pink to just an unreasonable degree.

What if, however, there were no bright colors to betray the possible stuffed owl? What if the insidious designers of the stuffed animal owls, determined to confuse the public as thoroughly as possible, created an owl using soft browns and grays?

In this case, we must never forget that owls do not have tags. Tags are the hands of the stuffed-animal-owl world. Here is an example:

Mint condition? It was sucked through a turbine. Don't trust Amazon user "ILuvOwls".

 Did you see the tags? They were circled in red. We feel like it was pretty obvious. If you didn't see them, you may be blind, in which case you probably wouldn't have been able to read any of this, so we think it's unnecessary to go into any more detail.

Congratulations! You can now successfully distinguish owls from stuffed animal owls. Let's review a few of these basic principles we just learned:

1. Always check if your stuffed animals are actually real animals before going to bed.
2. Owls are pretty much brown with a few grays and some white thrown in to spice things up.
3. Owls absolutely hate pink. We really can't stress this enough.
4. Owls don't have tags and probably aren't mass produced in China, Mexico or Taiwan.

Good luck out there, everyone! Happy owl identifying!