Bat Crackers!

The strangest tongue lashing I ever got was because I was mean....
to a photograph...
...of a bat.
Nellie and I lived in the same dorm. She seemed nice, liked animals, and had lots of books about them in her room. One day I thumbed through her Field Guide to Mammals of North America.
The bat section caught me off guard. These were strange looking critters: beady eyed balls of fur with needle teeth. Ears and snouts that looked like alien leaves.
"Some of these look funny!" I giggled, holding up the book. "Check out this bat."
Nellie looked like I'd slapped her. She snatched the book away.
"How dare you make fun of him!" she hollered. "The bat can't help how he looks! What if you were that bat!? You shouldn't judge by looks, you know!"
I could understand her being upset if I'd joked about a person ("So-and-so looks funny, let's avoid her,") or if I'd said something like "And since I think bats look funny, I'm going to throw rocks at them."
Maybe I should have said "Look, lunatic. If this bat were in this room, hanging from your curtain rod, would he know I was 'judging' him? Even if he did know, why would he care? He's a bat! If he told all his bat buddies that humans looked strange, would you care?"
Instead I made some excuse for leaving.