Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.'s?

The other day, I went to lunch at a local coffee shop. As I approached the restaurant, I saw a man seated at a table on the patio with his dog on a leash beside him. However, as I got closer I realized it wasn't a dog at all. Nor was it a pig. Nor was it any animal I've seen before in my life.

My first thought was that I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in the Fire Swamp, face-to-face with an R.O.U.S. Turns out I wasn't too far off.

"Um, what is that?" I asked the man, trying to sound pleasant but clearly a little unnerved.

"It's a khaki-barra," he said, as though I was the dumbest person alive.

"It's a what?" I asked, as I reached out and ran my hand across what felt like boar bristles.

"It's a khaki-barra," he replied, clearly irritated with me.

Okay, listen, you arrogant prick. Don't sit there like whatever that is on a leash is something even remotely common. I watch an embarrassing amount of both the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, and I have never seen anything like that. A sloth, for example, is not of our land. But if you had one on a leash, I'd be like, "Oh, there's a guy with a sloth on a leash." I'd proceed to judge you for that, but I'd at least know what the hell you had for a pet.

I went inside and was paying for my order while continuing to stare out the window.

"Ahem."

I snapped out of it and realized the woman at the counter was handing me my credit card. "Shit, sorry," I mumbled.

"It's okay. There's a kookaburra outside. It's understandable."

Now, see? Once again. I know what a kookaburra is. (A bird from Australia.) I used to sing a song about it in kindergarten, and I can promise you that whatever the hell that thing outside is never sat in the old oak tree, or was the merry merry king of the bush. But in the spirit of research, I feigned ignorance.

"Um, yeah, what is that exactly?"

"It's a Brazilian rodent."

So I was right. It is an R.O.U.S.

As soon as I got home, I googled, "large Brazilian rodent". This is what I found:

This, friends, is a Capybara - the largest living rodent in the world. They are semi-aquatic (apparently they're fond of ponds) and can grow to be about four feet.

I could go on all afternoon wondering why someone would want to have the world's largest rodent for a pet, why they'd take it to a local restaurant, and how one might obtain a permit for such an animal, but at the end of the day, it's all INCONCEIVABLE!