It's Only A Paper Rose

My supervisor Nancy (well, technically she's my supervisor though we talk to each other more like friends than anything else) has this oddly irrational fear of cats. Not simply an avoidance thing (though she certainly does avoid them) - she has an active disgust of them almost to the point of hatred (rather similar to how some people react to spiders and other creepy crawlies). The fear apparently extends to other small furry mammals that generally fall into the "cute" category (dogs, hamsters, etc.), but she seems to react most strongly to cats.

Why do I bring this up? No particular reason, aside from the fact that it makes me laugh out loud whenever she talks about them - she always spells C-A-T, like she can't bring herself to say the actual word (as in "My father used to have a C-A-T that everyone loved except me"). I guess it strikes me as funny because although I've met people who were neutral towards or disliked cats, I've never met someone who had this kind of intensive phobia towards them...